


Ashes Inside When You Finish Your Song

by Muncaster



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: (but they remain my brotp), Band! AU, M/M, Mutual Pining tbh, Slow Burn, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, a hint of sokka/suki at the beginning but it is quickly crushed, accidentally discovering zukos lube o.O, cactus juice, figuring out sexuality, gay Zuko, in this house we disrespect haru's mustache, modern! AU, sexually ambiguous sokka, sokka writes lyrics and delivers pizzas aka he is a Dream Man, the gaang is a band and so is the blue spirit, the momo and sokka friendship we deserve, zukka rights babeyyy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:20:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 47,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25409089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muncaster/pseuds/Muncaster
Summary: Sokka writes lyrics for his sister’s band.  Zuko plays piano and is unnecessarily nice.Fellas, is it gay to write love songs about your friend and his golden eyes?(AKA, a modern band AU featuring The Gaang, crappy software equipment, homoerotic lyrics, and the realization that maybe, if you think about a guy every night before you sleep, you just might be in love with him.)
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 181
Kudos: 984





	Ashes Inside When You Finish Your Song

**Author's Note:**

> viva la ATLA/zukka renaissance!!!

When Sokka imagined death, he always thought it would take him in some exquisite, beautiful way. Like throwing himself in front of a truck to save a baby or two. Or tackling an assassin in order to save Aang, or Katara, or Suki, or Toph. (Not that assassins would be after them. But still.) If Sokka was being realistic, he imagined himself having a boring death in old age. But that didn’t mean it wouldn’t still be beautiful. Maybe he would be sleeping in a field of flowers when death took him. Suki would be by his side, crying, _w_ _hat will I do without the smartest, most muscular man alive, loving me_. Sokka would give her a kiss, murmur, _I’ll see ya with Agni, baby,_ give her a wink and exit the earth.

He never imagined death quite like this.

“SOKKA!” Katara yells, eyes narrowed and murderous. “You did _what?_ ”

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know he would actually text you!” Sokka justifies, backing away from her and eyeing the window to his side. There’s a prickly rosebush just outside. _Damn it_ , he thinks. 

“You gave Jet my number and _didn’t know_ that he would text me? How stupid are you?” she shouts. 

“Apparently somewhat stupid! As you’ve _so kindly_ told me many times before,” he says, putting his hands up. He’s backed up against the wall. “Listen, I needed Jet to help me with something, and he just wanted your number in return. I didn’t ask him what he’d do with it!”

Katara points her finger at Sokka’s face, getting as close as she can to him. “What on _earth_ did you need, that you could possibly justify giving away my _private phone number_ , to the _most annoying man on the planet_ , Sokka, you absolute idiot--”

“Hey, I’m home!” Aang’s voice calls from the front door, which Sokka blissfully hears opening and closing. 

Katara pauses, furious eyes still focused on her brother. Sokka knows they have about ten seconds before Aang can see them.

“I’ll get rid of your contact information on his phone,” Sokka whispers quickly, hoping it will save him.

Her finger wags a few times before she brings it down. She angrily mutters, “You better, and you owe me one,” and then leaves Sokka against the wall as she walks towards the door.

Sokka could kiss Aang, if Aang wasn’t engaged to his sister, and if Sokka kissed guys. 

_Ha. As if._

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

Having his sister threaten to kill him might not have been worth Jet taking his next Friday night shift, but hindsight is 20/20. Suki had invited him to go see the Kyoshi Warriors open for some musician at the local dive, Tyro’s Tavern, and he knew that if he wanted a shot with her, he had to go. Katara’s phone number be damned, not to hell, but to Jet’s possession _(arguably worse, but Sokka wasn’t thinking too much about it)._ Sokka would figure out some way to delete her number off Jet’s phone after going out with Suki.

“So what’s the deal with this chick?” Jet asks, the night before the concert ( _the date? or just the concert? Sokka wasn’t sure_ ).

“What’s the deal with Suki?” Sokka asks, confused. “Jet, you’ve met Suki before.”

He frowns. “The short blind drummer one?”

“No, that’s Toph,” Sokka sighs, throwing another pizza in the oven. “I have also known Toph since she was little and I am not going to be thinking of her in that way.”

“Your loss, now that she’s grown and all,” Jet says, reviewing the online orders coming in. “I know she’s blind, but I mean, we aren’t.”

Sokka closes his eyes and grimaces. “Jet, that is disgusting and I hope she beats you up one day.”

Jet laughs. “I’d like to see her try.” 

Sokka would like to see her try to fight Jet, too. He’d place his life savings on Jet having his ass handed to him within five seconds. Maybe even just three seconds.

Sokka stuffs a filled order into his bag and grabs the keys to the company car. “Suki’s the tall brunette one. The violinist?”

“Weird makeup lady?” Jet says, eyebrows scrunched up hard in concentration.

“It’s not weird,” Sokka sighs, exasperated. “Red eye shadow is in now, I think. I don’t know. Her makeup is fine!”

Jet relaxes his face and goes back to reading through the orders. “If you say so. Hey, those pies are going to Caldera, right?”

“Yeah,” Sokka says, pushing through the door. “I’ll be back soon enough.”

“Cool. Enjoy the Caldera tips, tushycakes!” Jet yells to Sokka’s retreating back.

Sokka grimaces at Jet’s awful nickname for him as the door closes and he walks to the car. He puts the pizzas in his passenger seat and then sits in the driver’s seat, slowly pulling the seat belt over himself. He turns the car on, and immediately, he hears The Gaang’s CD of rough recordings that Aang had given him years ago.

The Gaang had started way back in high school, when Sokka was about to graduate. Katara met Aang in Advanced Band, and Aang practically begged Katara to stay after school every day to make their own songs, which usually ended up being parodies of popular radio hits. Katara would fiddle around on guitar, Aang would strum the bass and sing, and eventually, Aang’s friend Toph joined in and banged around on the dusty drums in the back of the practice room. Sokka usually hung around their jam sessions; at first, because Katara begged him to, but soon enough, Aang roped him in to write lyrics. 

Sokka’s graduation came quickly after, and he moved into a tiny studio apartment on the edge of town. To his surprise, Aang insisted that jam sessions be held at Sokka’s instead of the high school practice room. Sokka still wasn’t sure if it was some righteous attempt to continue to include Sokka in the group, if it was a ploy to continue eating the snacks Sokka always had around, or if it _really was_ because the music instructor got tired of the group taking up all the time in the school’s only practice room.

By the time Aang and Toph graduated three years later, their little music group had a name: The Gaang. Aang and Katara started living in a three-bedroom house together ( _lucky Aang and his lucky inheritance_ ). They offered Sokka a room, and he took it. Moving in was an easy decision. It helped to have Aang’s alarmingly huge St. Bernard, Appa, and his disturbingly vocal cat, Momo, to keep him gentle company. The spare bedroom in their house transformed into a music studio. They started going to shows in town. They stopped focusing on parody songs and started creating original work. They met Suki and the rest of the Kyoshi Warriors when they started playing gigs at Tyro’s Tavern. The rest… well, the rest blends into the present. Sokka delivers pizzas and supports the band, occasionally chipping in lyrics that seem to sound good when they’re coming out of Aang’s mouth.

Right now on Sokka’s radio, he listens to “Mint,” a song he helped Aang write when Aang was first trying to ask Katara out. Sokka personally hated working on it ( _who wants to help someone woo their sister? gross!_ ), but he must admit the chorus is catchy.

“ _You’re the cold mint on my lips when I wake_ ,” he sings along, _“is that why your nails are always painted blue? Is your impact on me like my impact on you?_ ”

Toph really went apeshit on the drums in this one, and Sokka lets himself get lulled by their passion as he drives into Caldera. Caldera is on the outskirts of town, outskirts he never entered before he picked up the pizza delivery gig. Most of Caldera is looming houses ( _mansions, maybe_ ), with three-car garages and exquisite gardens. Tips in this part of town are hit or miss; either the people here don’t believe in tipping their drivers, or they give more than enough in cash that he can pocket under the table.

On this particular outing, there’s only one stop to make. Sokka finds the house easily enough, squints to make sure the address is correct, and grabs the pizzas out of his bag. 

He just barely scrapes his knuckles against the door when it opens. He’s faced with a slender woman, hair done up in a simple braid, smiling brightly at him. 

“Hey handsome,” she says.

Sokka doesn’t quite get words together to reply before a taller woman pops up behind the first one.

“Ty Lee, what are you--- oh, it’s just the pizza man,” she sighs, rolling her eyes. “Zuko,” she calls. “Come pay the pizza guy.”

“Here’s your food,” Sokka says, passing over the pizzas to the happier girl ( _Ty Lee?_ ). “Just the three pizzas, right?”

“Is that what the order said?” the tall one says in monotone. 

Sokka gulps. “Yes?”

“Okay then,” she says, taking the pizzas from Ty Lee. She heads further inside and disappears from view.

“Sorry about Mai,” Ty Lee says, leaning into Sokka. “I’m very thankful that you came by with the food.”

“Oh,” Sokka says, “yeah, of course, no worries about it. Just doing what I get paid for.”

“Still,” Ty Lee replies, still smiling. “It was so nice of you to bring it to us so warm.”

Sokka doesn’t know what to make of her words. _Is she hitting on me? Is that what’s happening here?_

“Ty Lee, that’s literally his job,” a new voice says. A new _sultry_ voice. Borderline sexy despite its low pitch. _Huh?_

Someone new pops up behind the door. It’s a guy, around Sokka’s age, with shaggy, long, ink-black hair, with a massive scar taking up the left side of his face. He looks… rugged. _Ruggedly handsome_. Like the dashing prince that shows up on a black horse to rescue a distraught princess in some storybook. 

“Right,” new guy mutters, looking up at Sokka for the first time. He is silent for a second, and then asks, “What do I owe you?”

_Your number_ , Sokka wants to say. All the air in his body drops to his belly when he processes his thought. But it’s late at night and this rugged stranger ( _Zuko_ ) has golden eyes that glint in the porch light, so Sokka justifies his madness and pulls himself together.

“Thirty,” Sokka says plainly, averting his eyes and stuffing his hands in his pants pockets, now that he doesn’t have pizzas to hold. 

“Okay,” he replies, and Sokka has never heard a voice good enough for him to deem it _silky_ before _, not even_ Aang’s when he sings, but this guy… well, this guy is coming pretty damn close to silkiness.

An outstretched hand grasping some bills enters Sokka’s eyesight. “For you,” Zuko says, and Sokka takes the money and nods in thanks, catching his eyes again.

“You always deliver on Thursday nights?” Ty Lee asks, crooking her head slightly to the side, continuing to smile at Sokka. Zuko disinterestedly lingers behind her.

“Um, sometimes,” he replies, scratching the back of his neck. “Not always, though.”

_Agni, this is awkward._

“Okay, well,” Sokka continues, taking some steps backwards, “have a good night!”

“You too!” Ty Lee beams, and their door shuts and Sokka is left by himself, walking back to his car, not processing how on _earth_ he felt so weird at that house. 

He drives back to the pizza place. Jet’s in the exact same spot, looking bored as he reviews the rest of the night’s orders.

“Hey Jet,” Sokka greets, slinging his bag back on the counter. Usually, he doesn’t welcome conversation between the two of them, but he’s stuck in a strange mood and figures a little talking won’t hurt anything. “Random question, but what’s the weirdest delivery you’ve ever made?”

“Naked grandma,” Jet replies instantly, not even bothering to glance up at Sokka. 

Sokka about chokes. “Wha-- huh?”

“Naked grandma,” he repeats. “I dunno. She opened the door, tits out and everything. Must’ve seen _me_ walking up to her door, and immediately decided that she wanted to make some sort of move. Too bad I’m not into cougars,” he chuckles.

“Too bad,” Sokka echoes, immensely regretting every life decision he’s made. He pulls out the wad of cash Zuko handed him and counts it, needing to put thirty dollars in the cash register. He counts it. He’s only got thirty dollars.

Sokka closes his eyes and reminds himself to breathe in through his mouth, out through his nose. 

_That bastard made him momentarily lose his mind, and he didn’t even fucking tip_.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

There are only a few more orders that night, and by the time Sokka opens the door to his house, he’s got twenty bucks in his pocket and a mistake of a pizza between his hands ( _“the order was NO pineapple, not LOADS pineapple, Sokka,” he can hear Jet yell in his ear_ ). Appa is lying on the living room carpet, eyes barely open, obviously wanting to sleep. Unsurprisingly, he hears sounds coming from the practice room. He pets Appa on the head before he drags himself to the studio’s door and looks at his friends arguing.

“Katara, you’re not going fast enough,” Toph is exclaiming, drumsticks waving around in her hands for some sort of emphasis. “This is a _fast song_.”

“It doesn’t need to be a fast song!” Katara says, guitar seemingly forgotten on her lap. Katara looks up at her brother, focuses momentarily on the pizza, but then looks back at his face with determination in her eyes.

“Sokka! What do you think? Is ‘Sweat’ supposed to be fast or _normal paced_ ,” she asks pointedly.

Sokka glances around the room. Toph looks frustrated, Aang is fiddling with his bass, avoiding the confrontation, and Suki is dozing off on the beanbag they flung in the corner.

“Well,” Sokka says slowly, “the song _is_ called ‘Sweat’. Which, like, you have to be moving kind of fast for sweat to show up on your body. So… maybe it should be fast?”

Katara looks murderous. Toph has a shit-eating grin on her face.

“Hah!” she says, bringing her drumsticks back to her drums and banging around a bit. “Snoozles, great point. Sugar queen, seems like you better get working on making that guitar bit of yours faster.”

Katara shoots her a death glare, tired enough to forget that Toph’s not going to be affected by it. “That’s it,” Katara says. “I’m going to sleep. Aang?”

“Huh?” Aang says, looking up from his bass. “Oh, bed. Yeah, sure.”

Sokka slouches against the wall as they leave for their bedroom, and then opens up his pizza box. He inspects the first slice, a horrible invention of black olives, mushrooms, pepperoni, and… loads of pineapple ( _for real, who specifies NO pineapple when that’s the default??_ ). He’s hungry enough to eat it anyway as Toph fiddles around on her drums some more.

Suki starts to wake up when Sokka’s finishing up his second slice. She scoots over, tempted by the food ( _or his indecently attractive personality, he can’t decide_ ), and steals a slice from him.

“You know,” Sokka says between mouthfuls of crust, “most people ask first.”

“Most people offer first,” Suki says, eyebrows exaggeratedly raised, smiling slightly as she eats her first bite. 

Sokka smiles back. “Touché.”

“You better save some for me, Snoozles,” Toph says, still concentrating on a set of noises she’s been trying to perfect since Sokka walked in.

“Tell that to Suki,” he says, playfully side-eyeing her. Suki laughs as she elbows Sokka in faux hurt.

“Oh, that reminds me,” Sokka says, pulling something out of his jacket pocket. “Brought a whole bunch of hot peppers, too. I dare you to eat them plain.”

Suki grins and grabs three of the ( _small but dangerous_ ) peppers out of Sokka’s hand. “Oh, you’re on.”

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

It isn’t long before the pizza is gone, Suki and Toph leave, and Sokka is alone, cleaning up the practice room. He takes a few moments to listen to their recordings from today. It’s mostly pieces of ‘Sweat,’ but there’s also a new version of ‘Mint’ with Katara joining Aang in the vocals, as well as a memorable thirty-second snippet of Toph and Suki yelling “fuck!” over and over again until they run out of breath. Sokka smiles as he saves it under the ‘favorites’ folder.

He opens up the clips of audio from ‘Sweat,’ which consists of Katara’s slow guitar plucks, Toph’s drum insanity, and Aang singing, in a slow, low pitch, “ _I promise to pick up the pieces if you break it all apart/Sweat down my spine and I’ll work with your hand on my heart_.” 

There’s not much Sokka can contribute to The Gaang. He knows this. Sometimes Suki will join in with her violin, and occasionally Haru (the manager at Tyro’s Tavern) will offer helpful advice. Sokka just helps with lyrics. He sits in during practices and claps after The Gaang performs. There was one attempt to write Sokka in for a singing part, for their song ‘My Girlfriend, The Moon’, which would have been a duet with Aang. But when faced with an unknown audience staring into the very fiber of his soul, Sokka couldn’t open his mouth to sing. So that was that.

It’s almost three in the morning, but Sokka’s mind is still awake. He isolates Aang’s vocals in ‘Sweat’ and drags them into the shoddy program he uses for audio editing. He fiddles around with the pitch and tempo. After an hour of work, the vocal audio clip sounds weirdly high-pitched, but it’s going smoothly with the drums, so Sokka feels accomplished. He saves the new file, turns off the lights in the studio, and heads to sleep.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

Sokka has his two choices laid out on his bed. On the right, a white t-shirt, tight jeans, and his ratty sneakers. On the left, a black v-neck sweater, slim black-and-white patterned trousers, and some dress shoes Katara had bought him when he was attempting to get a 9-to-5 job. Momo plays with the shoelaces on his sneakers, unaware of the moment’s seriousness.

“I mean, they’re kind of the same,” Aang finally says, scratching at his neck. “I don’t think there’s a wrong answer here, Sokka.”

Sokka doesn’t lessen up his concentration on the outfits. “There absolutely _is_ a wrong answer here, Aang. Let’s say I wear the white shirt outfit. _Bam!_ She loves how the shirt makes my eyes pop. But _bummer!_ She hates that I wear sneakers while hanging out with her, and thus decides to never see me again.”

Aang purses his lips. Sokka can see it out of the corner of his eye. He whips around and faces his friend.

“You aren’t taking this seriously!” Sokka accuses. “Aang! How could you!”

Aang groans. “Listen, I’m sorry! But Sokka, do you really think, that if she likes you, she’ll care about what you’re wearing? I just think she’ll care about hanging out with you,” he justifies, looking hopefully into Sokka’s eyes.

Sokka considers this for a moment before absolutely rejecting it. “Nope. Hate to tell you, Aang, but chicks dig a well-dressed man.”

“Fine,” Aang sighs. “So, if you think she’ll hate your dirty shoes, then just wear the other outfit! Those shoes are nice.”

“They are,” Sokka concedes, “but… are they _too_ nice? Will they make her think I’m… posh? Oh, Agni.”

“You are aware that Suki has known you for two years, yeah?”

“Can’t take any risks,” Sokka says, certain of himself. “You and Katara knew each other for two years before you guys started dating, remember?”

“Fine,” Aang huffs. “Okay, so just combine the outfits. Wear your good shoes, but then the more casual clothes.”

“But then we lose the chest aspect,” Sokka ponders. “From the v-neck.”

“Then wear the v-neck with the jeans and nice shoes.”

“But black doesn’t make my eyes pop as good as white.”

“Sokka,” Aang says, putting an arm on the other man’s shoulder. “I cannot help you here. Whatever combination you put on will look good. Look in the mirror sometime! You’ve got a good face.”

“I do, don’t I,” Sokka agrees, relaxing. He takes a breath in, a breath out, and composes himself. “Okay then. New plan. But I need you to grab me scissors.”

“Scissors?”

“So I can make this a v-neck,” Sokka says, grabbing the white shirt. Aang sighs but brings them to Sokka anyway.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

Suki promises to pick Sokka up by seven ( _he tells himself it’s very progressive of him to let the woman pick him up for the maybe-date; in reality, his car needed an oil change, like, years ago, and he doesn’t drive it unless he absolutely has to_ ). At 6:55, Sokka turns to his mirror, frantically tucks his loose hair into his wolf tail, centers the puka shell necklace on his neck, and examines his teeth to make sure there’s nothing in between them.

“This is going to be good,” he says to Momo, who is sleeping on his bed. Momo flicks an eye up at him, but otherwise ignores his words. “Don’t you doze on me! This will be a good, fun night.”

“Sokka!” he hears Katara calling from the living room. “Can you take out the trash?”

“I just put on cologne!” Sokka cries out, walking out to see his sister. “Can’t you do it?”

“I don’t see why I have to— _Agni_ , Sokka, what are you wearing?”

Sokka looks down at himself, seeing his tight jeans ( _good for his ass_ ), nice dress shoes ( _good for his class_ ), and his newly-v-necked white t-shirt ( _good for his chest_ ). “What?”

“Your shirt,” she says, walking towards him. “What did you do to your shirt?”

“It shows off my pecs now,” Sokka insists, self-consciously touching the new edges of his shirt.

“It also shows off your belly button,” Katara says slowly, looking him over. “Sokka, I’m not sure v-necks are supposed to go down that low.”

“It’s just more to show off!” he insists.

Katara looks ready to say something else, but then they both hear a car honk outside. 

“That’s my cue,” Sokka says, reaching around Katara to grab his wallet on the couch. He gives Appa a pat on the head and opens the front door. “Good luck with taking out the trash!”

Suki’s green minivan is pulled up right in front of their house. Sokka waves at it, and when he peers into the front, he thinks he can see some shadow-y blurb in the passenger seat.

_Aw, she must’ve bought me flowers or something. So sweet, she shouldn’t have_.

Sokka opens the passenger door with a smile and looks at Suki and then at--

“Toph?” Sokka asks, dumbfounded.

“Hey there, Snoozles,” she says, letting out a small chuckle. “As you can tell, the front seat is taken. There’s some room in the back for you, just move around my clothes, okay?”

For a second, Sokka just stands there, hand holding the door open. Finally, regaining himself, he lets out a tiny, “Hey, Suki,” and when Suki waves at him, he forces a smile and closes the passenger door before situating himself into the backseat.

“So,” Suki says as Sokka pulls on his buckle. “Toph’s plans with her parents tonight got cancelled, so I picked her up and thought it’d be fun for us to all hang out together. Kyoshi Warriors goes on at 7:30, and then The Blue Spirit comes on an hour later.”

“The Blue Spirit? Never heard of them,” Sokka says, pushing aside a pair of Toph’s pants ( _and_ _ew, are those dirty socks?_ ).

“You’ll probably like him,” Suki says, smiling and glancing back at Sokka. “It’s just this one guy that plays piano and sings these broody songs.”

_So Suki asks me out to a concert that she’s performing in, and after her performance, she’ll get back to me right in time for some depressing music to start. Oh! And she brought someone else along, too. Perfect._

“Perfect!” Sokka says, trying to dredge up any ounce of excitement.

Toph laughs. “Seems like _someone’s_ excited for some sadboi hours tonight.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he replies, removing a final mismatched sock from his seat. “It’ll be fun.”

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

As expected, it is not fun.

Suki left them for her orchestra group as soon as they entered Tyro’s Tavern. Sokka made eye contact with Haru behind the bar and immediately waved at him. Toph took his slight movement to mean that she could ditch Sokka to go intimidate the local edgy boys that always camped out in the corner booth of the bar ( _whomst occasionally include Jet, but at least_ he _won’t be contributing to the misery tonight_ ). Sokka was left alone.

He decides to go and sit at the bar, partly to catch up with Haru and partly to get a drink, because, if he’s honest with himself, he has never felt more like he needed one.

“Sokka!” Haru says happily when he notices him perched on a bar stool. “What can I get for you?”

Sokka jams his hand in the back of his jeans pocket ( _which takes time, as they’re clinging deliciously to his ass_ ), and pulls out the twenty dollars in tips he made the night before. “How much cactus juice can I get with this, my good friend?”

Haru bites back a smile and Sokka fits the bill into the front pocket of his jeans. 

“I’ll get you started, don’t worry about it,” Haru says.

Cactus juice is a brilliant invention that Sokka helped Haru create, in a ploy to get more customers into the tavern by broadening their cocktail offerings. Cactus juice is mostly vodka. Or white rum? Maybe gin. Mostly some clear hard liquor, Sokka couldn’t quite remember which. It’s mixed with an extraction of prickly pear liquid, and then combined with some smattering of juices that conceal the taste of the liquor. Easy enough to drink and easy enough on his pocket. 

“How’s the night going so far?” Sokka asks when Haru slides him the first of possibly many cactus juices. 

“Pretty slow,” Haru replies easily, wiping down the bar. “It’s usually slower on mostly instrumental nights like these, though. Any chance The Gaang will want to play soon? It’s always nice to have you guys here, for business sake.”

“Just for business sake?” Sokka teases.

Haru grins. “Yeah, that’s it. Totally don’t look forward to hanging out with you lot every time I get the chance to. Our friendship means nothing compared to the few extra bucks I can make off your backs.”

“I knew it,” Sokka dramatizes, flopping his head onto the bar and covering his face with his arms. “I trusted you, Haru, I really did. Should’ve known you changed ever since you grew that ridiculous mustache.”

“Hey, lay off the mustache,” he jokes as Sokka picks himself back up and starts working on the drink in front of him. “I like the mustache.”

“I suppose somebody has to,” Sokka muses. He deserves the swat of the bar towel he gets two seconds later.

Sokka finishes his drink easily enough, and Haru gets to work making him another. The Kyoshi Warriors are tuning their instruments, violins and cellos and violas working in harmony together to build up momentum, and Sokka supposes that even if his night won’t go to plan, at least there’s still good music.

“Hey, Haru. If you were serious about The Gaang,” Sokka mentions, “I think everyone’s pretty much free each night. No one else but me is working a night gig, and it’s not like they need me to play.”

“I was serious about it,” Haru says, sliding over the second cactus juice. “And stop playing, you’re just as much a part of that band than anyone else. Text me your off days next week, and we can figure out when to schedule you guys from that.”

Sokka smiles. “Thanks, Haru. I’ll do that.”

“Good. Now, please Sokka, tell me: why on earth are you wearing a shirt that’s cut _that_ Agni-damned low?”

Their banter flows with ease, even when the Kyoshi Warriors start playing happily in the background. Part of the joy of concerts at Tyro’s Tavern is that there’s no one way to enjoy the music; yes, there’s a little sunken pit by the edge of the music stage, so people could be close to the music and silently sway along, but there are also booths filled with people doing as they please, and a bustling bar that produces a hymn to join whatever chords strike the air. It’s magical, and Sokka wishes he came by more often than just when The Gaang plays.

Haru eventually gets tied up with a group of high school-aged girls acting as if their IDs aren’t fake, so Sokka grabs his ( _fourth? fifth?_ ) drink and turns his body towards the stage. He hasn’t noticed, however, that someone had sat next to him at the bar, so when he turns a bit too forcefully, some of the cactus juice sloshes out of his cup and lands on his neighbour’s ( _noticeably nice_ ) jean-clad thighs.

“Oh hey, sorry, didn’t mean to-- oh, it’s _you_ ,” Sokka says when his neighbour turns to look at him.

Staring at him is the guy from last night, the guy in the nice house with the nice eyes and nice hair and not-so-nice tipping manners. 

“You’re the guy from last night,” Sokka says out loud, nodding his head at the importance of making sure this dude knew who Sokka was. “With the ladies. You know?”

The guy ( _Zuko?? Sokka could only vaguely remember the name_ ) stares at Sokka for a while (including a quick dash of his eyes down Sokka’s newly made v-neck shirt) before he slowly nods back once. “You’re the guy from right now, who spilled his drink on my pants.”

“Spilt,” Sokka says confidently, downing the rest of his drink. “Not spilled, spilt.”

“Okay,” Zuko breathes out, and _Agni, his voice is cool water, warm smoke, rolled up into a single harmony_ , “you’re the guy who _spilt_ his drink on my pants, and you’re also the guy closest to the napkins, so if you wouldn’t mind…”

When he doesn’t continue, Sokka needs to ask. “If I wouldn’t mind what?”

“Agni,” he could hear Zuko mutter under his breath. “Never mind. My pants are dark, it’ll dry.”

Sokka debates whether to ask Haru for another cactus juice. Realistically, he doesn’t want to have Suki and Toph deal with him if he gets super wasted. Also realistically, he wants to get super wasted. It’s a fine line, and one he has little to no experience trodding. He should ask Haru for his tab, to see if he could even _afford_ another drink. He knows Haru said not to worry about it, but he also knows it is downright shitty to take freebies from a friend all willy-nilly like, and…

“Hey!” Sokka remembers, turning to Zuko again. “You didn’t tip me last night!”

Zuko frowns. “Huh? You said it was thirty bucks! I gave you all the money,” he insists, closing his arms around his chest.

“Yeah, you gave me thirty bucks! Don’t you know what tipping is?” Sokka asks, eyebrows furrowed. 

“Yeah, and it’s included in the thirty bucks,” Zuko says, maybe a bit confused. “You included the delivery fee, right?”

Sokka nods, “Right, but like, that’s two dollars to pay for the gas, that’s a company-mandated charge, but like, that’s not my tip.”

“Oh,” Zuko says after a moment. His mouth twists, almost defensively. “Well, you spilled your drink on my pants.”

“Spilt.”

“Whatever!”

Zuko huffs and turns back to watch the Kyoshi Warriors. When Sokka glances back towards the bar, he can’t see Haru, so instead he justifiably decides to continue conversation with the dark bad-boy-type pizza-stranger next to him.

“You a big Kyoshi Warriors fan?” Sokka asks, figuring that as good a place as any to start.

“No,” Zuko replies curtly. _Okay, so maybe there could’ve been a better place to start_.

“How about the, uh,” Sokka struggles to remember the other act’s name, “Teal Demon? You like him? The, uh, the broody one?”

Zuko turns towards Sokka again, _finally_ , and his face seems to darken. “Excuse me?”

“The broody one? Sad music alone guy?”

Zuko frowns. “The Blue Spirit?”

“Yes!” Sokka exclaims, grabbing onto Zuko’s shoulders. “Yes! The Blue Spirit. That one. Yes, you’re a genius, Zuko.”

“How do you know my name?” Zuko asks, his voice deepening so low and Sokka _knows_ it is sending his baby hairs tingling across the back of the neck _even though that’s impossible_ but he just _knows it---_

“How do you know my name?” Zuko repeats, slower, trying his best to catch Sokka’s eyes ( _which, admittedly, are a little all over the place_ ).

“Your scary lady friend said it last night,” Sokka remembers. “The tall one? With the hair that’s a bit pouffy up top but like, not down below. What’s her name? I didn’t catch it. But you were Zuko and the peppy one was Ty Lee? Right?”

“Oh,” Zuko says, glancing at the bar beneath his ( _long_ ) fingers. “Yeah. And um, Mai. The scary one’s name is Mai.”

“Cool,” Sokka says. “So like, are you two dating or something? You’ve got like, matching, like,” Sokka couldn’t find the word for it, so he just did his best as replicating an exaggerated version of the frown Zuko had on his face. “Oh wait-- is she here right now? Like, to watch The Blue Spirit with you? What a date concept. You know, I thought I was here on a date. But I don’t think so anymore. What a--”

Zuko coughs, face redder than before. “Maybe you should lay off the drinks.”

“Maybe you should mind your own business,” Sokka snaps, feeling good about the retort.

“Fine,” Zuko says. A few minutes pass by and the Kyoshi Warriors are really picking up their set, and Sokka knows that maybe he should’ve been paying more attention to his favorite violinist in the corner, but he can’t bring himself to care about it too much.

“To answer your question, no.”

“Huh?” Sokka asks.

“Mai and I aren’t dating,” Zuko huffs out. “She’s my best friend. And she’s a lesbian. She’s not here right now because she’s busy tonight.”

Sokka hums in response. The cellos die out, and then the violas, and then all that’s left in the air are Suki’s soft strings. The stage lights are framing her face pleasantly, and he hopes that the bar lights aren’t making him look particularly unattractive.

“I don’t even know your name, pizza guy,” Zuko says in his soft voice. Sokka focuses what’s left of his attention on the golden-eyed man next to him at the bar.

“Sokka,” he introduces. “My name is Sokka.”

“Sokka,” Zuko repeats, and _Sokka wants to lick the air to physically feel how his name sounds out of Zuko’s lips, and no it doesn’t matter how that sounds, he just wants--_

"Snoozles! You ready to hit it? Because I’m super tired and I want to go.”

Toph slams her arm on Sokka’s shoulder and jolts him into Zuko’s personal space. Zuko’s hands reach out to Sokka’s chest, holding him out to prevent a clash of bodies, and Sokka can feel the other man’s warm fingers touching his chest. Sokka readjusts and sits back on his stool, and Zuko takes his hands back and looks away, apparently disinterested.

“Aw, you find a new friend, Sokka?” Toph teases when Sokka doesn’t immediately reply. She pokes Zuko in the shoulder. “Who’s this? Sifu Hotman?”

“Excuse me?” Zuko says. 

“Your temperature’s pretty warm, maybe you should see a doctor,” Toph playfully suggests. She then turns her attention back to Sokka. “Suki just finished up, let’s go roll back to her place and drink over there. You can sleep on the couch and I can take the floor! It’ll be a real sleepover, we’ll paint our nails, talk about boys, put on a movie--”

“Okay, Toph, that’s enough,” Sokka says, running his hands along his hair.

“Maybe _you_ should see a doctor,” Zuko throws back to her. His lame come-back is delivered entirely too late to be effective, and Sokka wants to groan.

“Sifu Hotman, I haven’t _seen_ anybody in my entire life, and I don’t plan on starting to do so now,” Toph retorts. For a moment, Sokka _wishes_ that she could see, just to witness Zuko’s jaw unhinge and his molten gold eyes widen.

"C'mon, Sokka, say goodbye to your friend and then let’s go wait for Suki by the door,” Toph says, grabbing onto Sokka’s hand and pulling.

Sokka sighs, and then stands up. “Um, it was good to see you again, Zuko,” he offers, somewhat sheepishly, doing his best to focus on Zuko and his unfairly attractive face, despite the alcoholic haze clouding bits of Sokka’s vision.

Zuko nods. “Take care, Sokka.”

And with that, Toph yanks his hand harder than ever before and Sokka stumbles, clumsily finding his footing behind her as she leads him away from the bar, away from Zuko, away from the most enticing conversation Sokka can remember having in a long time.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

Suki’s been driving for ten minutes when Sokka remembers he didn’t pay his tab.

“Suki!” Sokka exclaims. “Please, you can just drop me off and I’ll just go in real quick to pay it. Haru’s my friend, I don’t want to leave him hanging.”

“Doesn’t he give you free drinks?” Suki asks, eyes narrowed but still playful. “Since you helped with their cocktail menu and all that?”

“Yeah, but I had a lot tonight,” Sokka reminds her. She snorts. “I need to at least give him what I’ve got.”

“And how much is that?”

“Twenty bucks.”

“Fine,” Suki sighs, flipping the nearest u-turn. “But you owe me.”

The list of people that Sokka owes is growing at a rapid pace. _But that’s okay. Maybe. Probably not, really, but who’s sober enough to care?_

When Suki pulls up outside the bar, Sokka runs out the door, squeezes by the bouncers, and immediately goes back to the bar. Zuko isn’t there anymore, which is fine, because it’s not like Sokka needed to see him again or anything. 

Sokka can’t see Haru behind everything at the bar. Frowning, he sits back on a bar stool and sets an alarm on his phone for five minutes. If Haru still couldn’t be found by then, that’s when Sokka would head back to the car and just give him the money later.

Just as Sokka arrives to that conclusion, he finally notices that the tavern is dead quiet except for a piano playing on the stage.

The piano is loud, aggressive, and seeped in low notes. The volume dims after a minute, drastically becoming quieter and higher pitched a second after the lowest note is played, and finally, Sokka can hear vocals softly balance out the contrasting pitches reverberating in his ear.

The smoky voice sings:

_My father is my subconscious_

_I’m always burning, I’m always nauseous_

_I thought he taught me how to be cautious_

_But he really killed half my brain;_

_There is love beyond comprehension_

_Untouched scars within this dimension_

_I’ve got a sister that I can’t seem to mention_

_Without feeling fucking insane;_

“Sokka, what’s up, buddy?” Haru whispers out of nowhere, and Sokka jumps, immediately wishing to be immersed in these lyrics again. But reality beckons.

“I forgot to give you this,” Sokka says, sliding his money over to his friend behind the bar. 

Haru’s eyebrows jolt up a bit. “You sure? It’s really on the house, Sokka,” he says, trying to shove the money back at him.

“I’m sure,” he insists. “Thanks for everything, Haru.”

“No problem. And hey, remember what I said about texting me your hours! I’d love to have The Gaang come play sometime this week.”

“Will do! But damn, Haru, you should really have this guy play here more. This is amazing. And the whole tavern’s actually listening?”

“Hm?” Haru hums, setting out to clean up some empty drinks. “Oh, you mean Zuko? Yeah, he’s great. This Blue Spirit stuff really does make you think, huh?”

Haru goes back to stacking glass behind the bar as if he didn’t just stop Sokka’s heartbeat. Sokka blinks. Then turns. Then looks at the stage.

And there, on the stage, is Zuko. Sleek, long dark hair hanging over his face as his slender fingers draw out the last piano note in his song. _Of course_ his voice sounds like smoke when he’s singing. _Of course_ he sings the best lyrics Sokka has heard in a long time. _Of course_ the lyrics are _terribly personal_ for someone who once-delivered-you-pizza and-then-talked-to-you-at-a-bar to hear so casually. 

Sokka stands up from his bar stool. Zuko’s song finishes, and his golden eyes flicker up, immediately catching Sokka’s. Sokka is entirely aware that Zuko is taking up too much time now, looking back at him, instead of starting the next song or calling for a break. Sokka debates doing something about it: _yell for an encore? run to him and give him a hug, because he looks like he needs one? sprint back to the car and pretend this never happened?_

In the end, Sokka doesn’t need to decide. Zuko breaks eye contact, starts the next song, and Sokka heads back to Suki’s car before he can hear Zuko sing again.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

Katara shows him the dick pic without warning. Sokka had just walked into the kitchen for coffee, and he immediately wants to throw away his brain.

“Why?” he complains, shielding his eyes.

“You _promised_ you would delete my number from Jet’s phone,” she huffed. “I woke up, after a wonderful night of sleeping next to my loving fiancé, and immediately had to look at this. I thought it would be fair for you to see it this early, too.”

“Well, thank you,” Sokka says, filling up his coffee cup. “Can’t believe I’ve had to go twenty-three whole years without seeing Jet’s junk. Quite the tragedy.”

“What now?” Aang’s voice calls out from his bedroom. Sokka turns around and sees the man pulling on a sweatshirt and coming into their living room, Appa trailing behind him. “You and Jet?”

“No!” Sokka exclaims, a bit offended. “Jet? Really?”

Aang shrugs. “I mean, you’ve seen, um, what he’s packing now, right?”

Sokka scoffs, relaxing a bit. “Yeah, but so has your fiancée.”

“What? Katara!”

“Sokka gave him my number!” she yells. “He sent me a picture of everything at 5 in the morning last night. I didn’t ask for it!”

“I believe you,” Aang sighs, stealing the coffee pot away from Sokka. “Even Agni knows Jet’s slimy.”

“Thank you,” Katara huffs. “Sokka, you really need to take care of this.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he drawls, sipping his coffee and searching the cabinets for breakfast. “I’ll get around to it soon, I promise.”

Katara is still somewhat seething, but she doesn’t reply.

“So,” Aang says, settling onto the couch with Appa immediately climbing onto his lap. “How was your date last night?”

Sokka groans, wanting to drown in his caffeine rather than answer Aang’s question. “First off, I doubt it was a date. Toph was there, too. But she was bothering those people that take over the booths the whole time. You know, the people that hang out with Jet a ton? Smellyman and Longshot, or something? Duke? I don’t really know,” Sokka sighs. “Anyway, second off, I had a bit too much cactus juice. Which couldn’t have made me enticing to Suki at all. And third off, I ran into this guy I delivered pizza to the night before, and _that_ was the most interesting part of my night. I talked to him more than I talked to anyone else.”

Aang nods calmly, and Katara bites her lip.

“Reaaaalllllly,” Aang draws out, and Sokka can’t tell if it’s a question or not. Sokka answers nonetheless.

“Yeah, it’s this guy named Zuko with these insane eyes,” Sokka snorts, sipping more of his coffee. “And he actually ended up being the second musical act that night. Kind of crazy, right?”

“Sokka, I think Aang was talking about _maybe_ how last night wasn’t a date,” Katara says, nudging at Sokka’s shoulder before joining Aang and Appa on the couch. 

“Oh, right,” he realizes. “Yeah, I don’t know. Suki was with the Kyoshi Warriors the whole time, but it was still good to see her play. And Toph’s plans got cancelled, which is why she was tagging along. But she got the front seat, not me, so I guess that really means it wasn’t a date.” 

Katara frowns a bit. “I mean, if that’s what it makes you believe, then okay. Want to talk about it more?”

“You can move Momo off the armchair and hang with us for a while,” Aang offers. 

Sokka takes him up on the offer. He moves over to the armchair, but Momo opens his eyes and glares at him as he approaches, so he decides to sit on the floor against the armchair.

“It’s just, like,” Sokka sighs, “I’ve been trying to get her to like me for two years now. _Two years_! You get it, Aang.”

Aang blushes but nods anyways.

“She’s just not picking up what I’m putting out for her,” Sokka concludes, reaching behind him to give Momo an awkward pet on the head. Momo purrs.

“Well,” Katara starts, pointedly looking away from her brother. “I don’t know, but sometimes when you talk about this, about her, it seems like you just want her to be attracted to you.”

“Well, duh,” he huffs.

“Just listen to me,” she sighs. “What I _mean_ is that your focus is on making her attracted to you. You’ve never really been concerned about how you feel about her.”

“I _love_ Suki,” Sokka defends. “What? She’s, like, the best. She’s amazing.”

“Yeah, but I think we all feel that way about her,” Katara laughs. “She _is_ the best. But Sokka, are you actually attracted to her?”

Sokka frowns. “What do you mean?”

Aang puts his arm on Katara and responds for her, like they’re on the same wavelength. Their connection, usually soothing, is just a tad frustrating at the moment.

“Well, I think it’s helpful to think about what you want, instead of what you want other people to think. You can’t control other people, right? So, you might as well focus on what _you_ want to do, who you want to spend time with purposefully. When Katara and I met, I just got this feeling in my stomach that I needed to be around her. And I kept asking her to hang out.”

“And I kept saying yes without really knowing why,” Katara says, smiling, looking at Aang. 

Aang smiles back at Katara before continuing, and Sokka forces himself to look away. “And that’s the thing. I would’ve loved your sister no matter what; she’s so smart, so beautiful, and so incredibly compassionate and fiery. But there was something underneath that, underneath every trait I grew to appreciate about her. She was just… compelling, I guess. And I knew I wanted to talk to her and see her smile every day, for the rest of my life. It just made things better.”

“Shame that I’m the one writing lyrics when you feel things this intensely,” Sokka attempts to joke, trying to memorize Aang’s words to process later, for when he would be alone.

“You’ve always got a better way of putting things than me,” Aang responds, blushing. “I’m a simple guy, you know? This feeling is too complicated for me to really put into words. But I hope I did okay just then.”

“You did,” Sokka says softly. “Thanks, Aang. And you too, Katara.”

“We’re here for you, always,” Katara smiles, “no matter what does or doesn’t happen with you and Suki.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Sokka snorts, picking himself off the floor. “I get the message. I’m going to go cry about it in my room now, thanks.”

“Don’t forget to deal with Jet!” Katara calls after him. “If he sends any more lewd pictures, I _am_ going to make sure you see them as frequently as possible!”

“Bet,” Sokka replies, letting Momo run into his room before shutting the door behind him. 

“What should we do before work today, his royal Momo-ness,” Sokka says in his special, regal voice he saves for Momo when it’s just the two of them together. Sokka drops down and gives the cat a scratch under his chin. Momo purrs.

“Agreed,” Sokka says after a beat. “Write until my brain is fried, then drag my lobotomized body back into work and eat at least twenty pepperonis before my shift actually starts. You’re always filled with such great ideas, his royal Momo-ness.”

Sokka pulls his notebook and favorite pen into his bed to get working on lyrics, and Momo makes himself comfortable on his lap. 

After a few hours, Sokka feels as if he’s at least got a few good lines to read off to his sleeping feline judge. He nudges Momo awake with a finger and clears his throat.

“How’s this,” Sokka begins, “ _You are my fire, my one desire_.”

Momo blinks up at him.

“Damn, you’re too good for me,” Sokka mutters, closing his eyes and looking away, fake ashamed. “You’re right; I didn’t write that, the Backstreet Boys did. But! I actually did write some fire stuff! Okay, fine, I’ll read it to you, for real. Stop begging.”

Momo closes his eyes again. Sokka snorts.

He tests out his lyrics by singing softly:

_You lit my fire, stained my mind crimson_

_Dirty desires I learned forbidden_

_Lick with the tendrils of flame in my face_

_I look to your eyes, a golden embrace_

Sokka pauses, realizing it took him longer than he expected to get the words out. With that, he adjusts the words a bit on his sheet of paper, and practices out the chorus:

_Fireproof skin doesn’t last very long_

_I’m ashes inside when you finish your song_

_Couldn’t say I’d ever hurt from the flame_

_But I’m breathless and starving and you’re all to blame_

Sokka sits with the chorus flowing gently through his brain. It’s not often that he feels so confident about his words, but these ones rest happily on his heart. He usually has trouble with writing love songs if Aang doesn’t help, but this one… well, it turned out pretty good. Sokka just hopes Aang feels the same way.

_Who cares that his golden-eyed inspiration was the guy he spent last night talking with? It doesn’t have to mean anything_.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

**Aang [8:05PM]:** sokka my man you literally did not have to go so hard on these lyrics

**Aang [8:05PM]:** already working on getting a bass line down for these bad boys

**Aang [8:06PM]:** jk they’re not bad boys

**Aang [8:06PM]:** they’re great boys

**Aang [8:06PM]:** great lyrics sokka

**Aang [8:06PM]:** don’t know what we’d do without you and your wordsmithing

Sokka sees the texts near the end of his shift and breaks out into a grin.

“Your girl text you some titties?” Jet asks.

"What?” Sokka exclaims, jolting his head from his phone. “Jet, no.”

Jet whistles. “All right, my bad, didn’t realize you struck out last night.”

“Jet, just please shut up, for once in your life,” Sokka sighs, typing out a reply to Aang.

**Sokka [11:16PM]:**!!!!!!!! so glad you like the words!

**Sokka [11:16PM]:** how goes song construction??????!!???!?!!!

Sokka puts his phone away and goes back to prepping pies. 

“Hey, have you seen your sister today?” Jet asks after a while.

“Yeah,” Sokka says, throwing a pizza in their oven. “By the way, nice dick. Don’t ever send her that again.”

“Thanks! Wait, wait wait wait, she didn’t like it?”

“You have literally met Aang! Her fiancé?”

“They aren’t married yet,” Jet says, brushing his hair out of his face. “And plus, marriage is a sham anyway. Just a piece of paper tying you into the government, giving you tax breaks in hopes that one day you’ll pop out a few more unsuspecting and vulnerable citizens,” he scoffs. “The whole institution of it all makes me sick.”

“Right,” Sokka says, barely paying attention. He knows it’s not worth it anymore to disagree. “You know Katara only had a crush on you for like, two days. A billion years ago.”

“Fine, I guess,” Jet sighs. “If your sister really doesn’t want this hot bod, then she doesn’t deserve it. I’ll take my talents elsewhere.”

“So you won’t text her anymore?” Sokka asks, skeptical but hopeful.

“Now, I didn’t say _that_ ,” Jet laughs. “Sometimes a guy’s just gotta lay little breadcrumbs out, in case a fine lady like your sister gets a little curious again.”

“That’s it,” Sokka decides. “I need your phone. I promised Katara I’d delete her number from it. You have to leave her alone, dude.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“What do you want?”

“Hook me up with someone else,” Jet says. “If your little date last night didn’t work out, just slide me her number instead. She’ll never know.”

“I’m not giving you Suki’s number,” Sokka exclaims.

Jet shrugs. “Oh, well. Guess I’ll keep texting your sister.”

Sokka bites down on his lip. “Come on, Jet. Stop being an ass and just delete her number. She doesn’t want you to text her, don’t be a dick.”

“I’m not deleting it unless I’m getting something else in return. An eye for an eye, a number for a number,” Jet says smugly. “A deal’s a deal.”

Sokka decides to block Jet’s number on Katara’s phone as soon as he gets back home. He’s a bit disappointed in himself for not thinking of that option yet.

**Aang [11:27PM]:** when are you getting home? we put something together!!

**Aang [11:27PM]:** we’re all here btw. whole gaang.

**Aang [11:28PM]:** just a lil heads up

**Sokka[11:29PM]:** i get off in 15!!! & got it

**Aang [11:29PM]:** like suki’s here too

**Sokka [11:29PM]:** yeah, i got it, thnx

**Aang [11:31PM]:** cool!! see ya soon

**Aang [11:32PM]:** give jet my love <33333

**Sokka [11:32PM]:** absolutely not

**Aang [11:32PM]:** xD

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

True to Aang’s word, they’re all in the studio when Sokka comes home.

“Sokka!” Katara exclaims, getting up to give him a hug when he walks through the studio door. “Where did these lyrics come from? And how can we get more?”

“Hello to you, too,” he laughs, holding up his two disaster pizzas of the night. “Before I get to listen to how you guys have butchered my song, would you like to eat?”

They agree to break for food, and Sokka can’t put into the words the comfort he feels in moments like this. On the floor of their hodge-podge music studio, with his sister, with his friends, too busy eating and joking around to focus on anything else.

“Oh, Haru texted me today,” Aang says, elbowing Sokka. “He wants us to come play whenever there’s a night a certain pizza man is free.”

“Oh, right!” Sokka remembers. “I just got my schedule for next week, one second…” He digs through his backpack, trying to find the sheet of paper he threw in carelessly when Jet handed it to him at the beginning of his shift. He finds it after a minute. “I’m free Wednesday and Saturday night? Anyone busy then?”

“No, but can we _please_ do the Saturday night one, if possible?” Suki asks in between pizza bites. “Weekend shows always have a better energy.”

“And more people,” Katara adds. “We could even try selling CDs?”

“We don’t have any CDs,” Sokka reminds them all, scrunching up his face. “I can get some discs, but I need to work on getting the mixings right for all the songs. CDs won’t be ready for a while, at least.”

“Maybe next time, Katara,” Aang says, putting a crumb-laden hand on her shoulder. “That’s a really great idea.”

“Plus, we need some good cover art for it,” Toph adds while chewing. “Leave that to me.”

“Thanks, Toph, that’d be great-- wait, no,” Sokka slaps his forehead, and Toph’s laughter surrounds him.

“It’s okay, Snoozles,” Toph giggles. “Although I think that I have an eye for fine art, it might be best to let you amateurs take over the album cover art project.”

“Done,” Suki says, still chewing on a bite of pizza. “Let’s just take a picture of Appa and Momo together and call it a day.”

“Or we can put a pin on it,” Sokka replies. “I’m sure we’ll think of something perfect later.”

**Sokka [12:24AM]:** haru my guy

**Sokka [12:24AM]:** good morning

**Sokka [12:24AM]:** what do u think abt either wednesday or saturday???? maybe saturday if u have some time open????? if thats cool?????

**Haru [12:25AM]:** good morning my good lad!!!!

**Haru [12:26AM]:** yes i have some open time on saturday!!! last slot of the night!!! ten to eleven work for you?

“Hey, is everyone good with going on at ten on Saturday?” Sokka asks.

When everyone agrees, he shoots Haru a quick text back.

**Sokka [12:28AM]:** perf!!!!!! yes will c u then!!!!!!!!

**Haru [12:28AM]:** :)))))

“All righty, now that that’s settled,” Sokka says, putting his phone away and looking back up at the group. “Time for you twerps to show me what damage you’ve done to my lyrics.”

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

To nobody’s surprise, the lyrics don’t seem to be butchered. Aang nails a sexy bassline that Katara follows with ease. Suki only picks her violin up when Aang starts singing, and that’s when Toph joins in with her drums, which lack the usual fast pace she prefers. Instead, the sound is subdued, and the drums only pick up at the briefest moments in the chorus. It all sounds mostly smooth, a bit jangly when the chorus hits, but the jangle is endearing and effective and Sokka is stunned. They take turns recording their individual parts, leaving Sokka the audio files to mess around with later, and then they call it a night.

“Hey Suki,” Sokka calls out as everyone else is leaving the room.

Suki looks back at Sokka and then walks back to him, sitting down on the bean bag chair on the corner as she was doing ten minutes ago.

“Hey Sokka,” she parrots, flashing him a grin. “What’s up?”

“Well, I just wanted to tell you that, well, I had a good time last night,” Sokka starts.

Suki purses her lips in a cautious smile. “Yeah? Me too. Thanks for letting Toph come around with us, too, she was having a hard time with her family and I figured she could use a distraction.”

“Oh, yeah, that was fine,” Sokka quickly reassures. _His lips are moving faster than his brain and he feels like he’s stumbling on his words and it sucks_. “Hey, Suki, do you ever, like…”

Sokka pauses. Suki looks at him quizzically.

“Do I ever what?” she asks.

“Like, do you ever feel pulled to me?”

“Pulled to you?”

“Subconsciously pulled to me.”

“What are you talking about, Sokka?”

“Ah, just forget it,” Sokka groans, putting his face in his hands.

Suki waits a moment before scooting on the edge of her bean bag, getting closer to Sokka.

“Listen,” she says, a small smile on her face. “Sokka, I care about you a lot. I love spending time with you. Just like I love spending time with Katara, and Aang, and Toph. You guys are like my family and I can’t imagine life without each and every one of you.”

Sokka looks up at her. “Yeah, I can’t imagine that either.”

Suki grabs his hand. “Sokka, I love you dearly. I want to hang out with you, but when we’re apart, it doesn’t feel like an absence. You don’t occupy my thoughts when you’re not around, and _I like that about you_. I like that about _us_. I’ve noticed that you try extremely hard, sometimes, to look good around me or make me laugh. But I think we’d be lying to ourselves if we say there’s some subconscious pull. Or at least I would. And I don’t think that’d be fair to either of us.”

“I wish we could better convince ourselves that this was it,” Sokka said quietly, gesturing between them.

Suki chuckles. “Yeah. I’d be lucky to be dating someone with your sense of humor. But I’m also lucky I won’t get stuck with your supreme poetry. Imagine you writing me some poetic, extravagant love letter and all I do in response is say, ‘ _oh Sokka, that was so sweet, thaaaankkkksss._ ’ Imagine how crap that would be for us both,” she says, laughing.

Sokka joins her laughter and squeezes her hand. “You’re right. I don’t know, I guess this whole time I’ve just felt like maybe we _should_ be more than friends. But maybe we’re best at just being friends. Maybe that’s okay.”

“Sokka, it’s definitely okay,” Suki says. “I love you so much, but without that subconscious pull? I think we’d be off each other’s wavelengths, and it would be a disaster waiting to happen.”

“Yeah, I guess I think that too,” Sokka says, biting down on his lip. “Hey, Suki, thanks for talking with me.”

“Anytime,” Suki says easily. She kisses his forehead before standing up. She pauses at the door, looking back at Sokka. “Sometimes, things don’t turn out exactly the way you expect them to, but that’s not a bad thing. It’s what is meant to be, really.”

“Never knew you were a philosopher,” Sokka jokes.

“One of my secret talents,” Suki says with a sly smile, her eyebrows raised. “Good night, Sokka.”

“Good night,” he says, waving, and she leaves him alone in the studio.

He fiddles around with Aang’s vocal audio for a bit but can’t get rid of the background whispers from Toph and Suki. They’ll just have to rerecord later.

Sokka picks up the scattered pieces of paper on the floor, notes written mostly by Aang. He finds the page with his new lyrics written on it, smiles at the exclamation points Aang has put near a few lines, and looks down at a one-word question Aang has underlined at the bottom of the page: _Title?????_

Sokka will have to work on that.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

The week passes by quickly. The Gaang rehearses each night ( _even on Sokka’s off-night, and he was so close to getting to sleep at a reasonable hour for once, but nooooo_ ). Sokka texts Haru to prepare the tavern for the best performance the group will ever put on, and Haru replies with an assortment of emoji hearts and confetti. They’re ready.

Suki picks everyone up and they head into Tyro’s Tavern on Saturday night.

Aang has insisted on getting there early, determined to snag a booth to listen to whichever groups are up before they get on stage. It’s a Saturday night, which means that there are two acts before they get up to play the last set.

Sokka’s excited to enjoy new music with his friends. But fate never seems to be nice to him, and Sokka feels a metaphorical knife go through his skull as he walks inside the tavern and hears piano.

Zuko’s on stage playing.

“Oh, hey, it’s that Blue Spirit guy again!” Suki whispers instantly to their group.

“Sifu Hotman!” Toph exclaims, a bit too loudly. 

Zuko’s concentration on his song is broken and he looks up towards their group. Sokka swears Zuko’s fingers miss a key when they make eye contact. Sokka clears his throat and tries to reset his mind.

“Yeah, cool, now let’s go grab a booth before Jet and his lame-o friends come and take them all,” Sokka says, somewhat urgently, nudging them all towards the back corner. “Anyone need a drink? I’m going to grab a drink.”

“Slow down, Sokka,” Katara laughs, grabbing the sleeve of his shirt and dragging him to sit next to her. “Relax with us, you can drink when we leave you to go play. Enjoy this guy’s music.”

“He’s already enjoyed it!” Toph laughs out. “He’s friends with him!”

“You know this guy?” Katara asks, brows furrowed.

“Yeah,” Sokka says, rubbing his face. “If you listened to me last week, I told you that I knew the guy that played after the Kyoshi Warriors. I delivered pizza to him once, I dunno.”

“And also had some pretty stimulating conversation with him,” Toph jokes. “Your heartbeat was going suuuuuper quick, Snoozles.”

“Was it now,” Suki dramatically says, teasing smile on her face.

“I was like five drinks in!” Sokka exclaims. The group laughs at him and he can’t muster up the effort to tell them all off. “Good riddance.”

Katara and Suki start talking about music they’ve been listening to in their free time, and Sokka tunes his ears back to the song Zuko switched over to. It’s familiar; _the one he played last week_ , Sokka recognizes.

_My father is my subconscious_

_I’m always burning, I’m always nauseous_

_I thought he taught me how to be cautious_

_But he really killed half my brain;_

_There is love beyond comprehension_

_Untouched scars within this dimension_

_I’ve got a sister I can’t seem to mention_

_Without feeling fucking insane;_

Sokka has already heard these verses before, so he doesn’t worry about straining his ears to hear over his sister’s voice. When Zuko starts the next verses, though, Sokka scoots over to the very edge of the seat to get a bit closer to the music.

_My mother raised me just to leave me_

_Claimed she loved us, just in theory_

_And she’ll visit when I’m sleepy,_

_When my thoughts can’t be contained._

_I became Uncle’s default son_

_When cousin sank to war not won_

_Though blood runs through to everyone_

_And cautions are ingrained._

_But still; in blood they tore apart_

_He scavenged out my gangly heart_

_And all these words will not impart_

_How Iroh keeps me sane._

Zuko finishes the song and the tavern immediately starts applauding. Sokka joins in, trying to make eye contact with the other man to give him an encouraging smile, a thumbs up, a wave, _something_. But Zuko just clears his throat and starts on his next piece, which turns out to be entirely instrumental.

“Dang, Sokka,” Katara whistles. “As much as I love your lyrics, that guy would give you a run for your money.”

Sokka glares at his sister, oddly enough feeling hurt and defensive. “But those were so specific! Like, who even is ‘Iroh,’ huh?”

“His Uncle, weren’t you even listening? And yeah, they were specific, but they’re _beautiful_ ,” Katara emphasizes. “He doesn’t follow the verse/chorus/verse pattern that we usually do.”

“Yeah, he forgot to make a chorus! Just so you’re aware, that pattern is what produces hits!”

“Maybe so,” she concedes, “but does it produce _emotional connection_?”

“Emotional connection my ass,” Sokka mutters, getting up. “I’m going to get a drink.”

Sokka listens to the rest of Zuko’s set on a bar stool, nursing a single glass of cactus juice. He doesn’t want to get sloshed and miss the rest of the music. Looking at Zuko already requires so much effort. _A strand of hair has fallen in front of Zuko’s face and it heightens the tension in Sokka’s head, at war with himself over whether or not he should be mentally acknowledging the charming mess of it all_. 

Only one more of Zuko’s songs has lyrics, and Sokka is particularly enraptured by a single verse:

_Am I to blame for what you’ve done_

_The legacies you crowned me in_

_Sometimes I wish I’d been born dirt poor_

_Where no one knows of you and the past_

It doesn’t rhyme, so by Sokka’s standards, the verse shouldn’t be good. _But it is_. Zuko’s smoky voice makes each syllable feel like velvet and Sokka can’t help but feel how smoothly it seems to caress his ears.

Zuko performs one more song and simply sits on the piano stool for a minute as the cheering dies down. He breathes in, raises his shoulders, and looks as if he’s about to begin a new song; but then he looks up quickly, catches Sokka’s eyes, hunches his shoulders back down and scooches the piano stool away from the piano.

“Thank you,” he mumbles into the mic, awkwardly, before clamoring off stage.

_Someone needs to work on their stage presence_ , Sokka somewhat fondly thinks. He sees Zuko head over to a table near the stage, where an old man is sitting alone, and Sokka makes a decision that he doesn’t think about. He grabs two more glasses of cactus juice from Haru and heads over.

“--a reason why you didn’t play the new song? You’ve been working so hard on it this week,” he can hear the older man say to Zuko, in a soothing, raspy tone that rivals the younger man’s.

“It wasn’t the time, Uncle,” Zuko seethes, moving his head to look away from the older gentleman and immediately making eye contact with the now-close Sokka.

“Um, hey,” Sokka said, suddenly feeling shy. “I just wanted to say that I think you had a really good show tonight, Zuko.”

Zuko’s face reddens, and Sokka quickly scrambles to think if he said anything even vaguely upsetting to the man. Finding nothing, he feels confident enough to continue talking. “I, um, got you and your guest some cactus juice from the bar as a little thank you for your performance,” Sokka says, putting the drinks on their table and hoping to not offend.

“Ah,” the older gentleman ( _Zuko’s Uncle? Iroh? If his songs are to be believed?_ ) says, “how wonderful, Zuko, this must be--”

“Uncle, this is Sokka,” Zuko introduces abruptly. “Sokka, it’s good to see you again. Thank you for the drinks, but we’re fine without them.”

“Zuko,” his Uncle says. “Let’s not be rude to your guest. Thank you for the lovely gifts, Sokka.”

Sokka smiles at the old man. “Of course. Hopefully you guys will like them. I helped Haru nail down the recipe for these a few years back.”

“The best gifts are hand crafted from the heart,” Zuko’s Uncle says, grinning. “Now Zuko, why don’t you and your friend catch up? I see Haru behind the bar and would love to find out what his father Tyro has been up to these days. Sokka, please, take my seat,” he gestures, getting out of it himself.

“Uncle--”

“I promise I will not get lost,” the man jokes before leaving. _Sokka likes him already_.

Sokka bites on his lip. “Well,” he starts.

“Well,” Zuko echoes, sighing and then raising an eyebrow. “What are you waiting for? Sit down.”

Sokka follows his direction.

“Why are you here tonight?” Zuko asks, raising his gifted glass of cactus juice to his lips.

“Oh, my sister’s in a band.” _Understatement of the year_. “See the people in the corner over there?” Sokka points over to their booth, where Suki is currently throwing salt towards Aang, with Toph cheering her on and Katara frantically talking, probably trying to get Suki to stop. 

Zuko nods.

“Anyways, that’s the band. The Gaang.”

“Do you play?”

“No, and even if I did, I’ve got this really cool thing called _debilitating stage fright_ , soooo,” Sokka chuckles even though he’s _second-guessing every single thing coming out of his mouth_ , “I write most of the lyrics and attempt to record their stuff, but that’s about it.”

Zuko hums but doesn’t say anything. He’s barely even looking at Sokka.

“That reminds me,” Sokka offers, since it appears the other man won’t attempt any further conversation. “Your lyrics are like, crazy good. Even the ones that don’t rhyme.”

“Uh, thanks,” Zuko says. 

“Do you write them all?” Sokka asks.

“Yeah.”

“And you do all the piano work too?”

“I mean. Obviously, right? I was the only one on stage.”

Sokka exhales. “Does _anyone_ help you with your stuff?”

“Sometimes Uncle helps me figure out the pacing,” Zuko says, finally flicking his golden eyes up to look at Sokka. “But mostly The Blue Spirit is a solo project that I work on whenever I need a creative release.”

“So if this isn’t your main gig, what do you do for a living?”

Zuko raises his eyebrows a bit and his mouth twists upwards in a slight smile. “I work at my Uncle’s tea shop.”

“You? Serving tea?” The visual is in Sokka’s mind before he can help himself. Before picturing it, he wanted to laugh. Afterwards… well, he isn't so sure. _Zuko in an apron. Zuko with a customer service voice. Zuko smelling like oolong._ _Oof._

“I’m happy to spend time with my Uncle as he lives out his dream,” Zuko replies simply, taking another drink of cactus juice.

Sokka smiles, pushing the bits of hair that have fallen out of his wolf tail back behind his ears. “That sounds nice, actually. Do you guys serve any food there?”

“Just some pastries,” he answers. “Not any pizza, tragically.”

That comment, that little reference that shows that Zuko remembers any detail about Sokka’s life, well… it makes him feel warmer than he’d like to admit. But Sokka pushes the feeling down and forces his mind away from his feelings and back to the conversation at hand. _So he remembered you deliver pizza. Whoop-de-do._

“Pizza and tea,” Sokka ponders after a moment. “That sounds like an absolutely terrible combination.”

“You never know until you try,” Zuko replies, his face mostly bent downwards, but his golden eyes peering up at Sokka. 

_Sokka’s never been a visual artist but he wants to paint Zuko’s eyes._

“Sokka, my man!” someone familiar yells in his ear, interrupting his thoughts of how impossible it would be to nail down Zuko’s exact golden shade in paint. The unwelcome shout is quickly followed by Sokka getting yanked into a side hug. 

Sokka immediately hits the intruder. “Fuck off, Jet,” he sighs, pushing him completely off. By the looks of it, Jet has already started drinking. Sokka moves Jet slightly to see that Jet’s little cronies are suddenly camped out in the booth next to his own friends. He groans.

“Well _somebody’s_ not happy to see me,” Jet exaggeratedly frowns, leaning into Sokka.

“Yeah, yeah,” Sokka mutters. “I’ll see you tomorrow, remember? Go bother someone else tonight.”

“Aw, Sokka,” Jet rolls his eyes, “you haven’t even introduced me to your friend over here.”

Something about Jet’s hungry gaze on Zuko makes Sokka snap.

“Jet, Zuko. Zuko, Jet. All right! Introduction done. Time to get going,” Sokka says, pointing in every direction that’s _away from their table_. “Shoo, shoo.”

Jet contorts his face together and looks funny at Sokka. “All right, if you’re so pushy tonight, tushycakes,” _Sokka could die of embarrassment in this moment_ , “you know where to find me if you need me.”

And with a wink, Jet is gone.

“So he seems--”

“Sorry about him, he’s just--”

Zuko and Sokka both start and stop their words at the same time. Sokka lets out a little laugh, and then says, “Sorry, go ahead.”

“Oh,” Zuko says, looking back down at his lap and moving his hands together. “So is he, like, your boyfriend?”

“Jet?!” Sokka sputters. “Like-- like, that Jet? The one that just came by here?”

Zuko looks up, confused. “Yeah?”

“Agni, no,” Sokka says. “Like, it’s very important to me that you don’t think I am with that man. Jet’s a perv. I work with him. And I’ve only seen his penis, like, once.” Zuko’s eyes widen. “No, Agni, that’s not what I meant, seeing his penis was an accident, and only a picture, not the real deal--”

“Got it,” Zuko confirms. “Jet’s your pervy coworker and you accidentally saw a picture of his junk once.”

“Exactly!” Sokka exclaims with enthusiasm. “Thank you.”

For some reason, this reaction gets a small laugh out of Zuko’s mouth. Sokka wants to record the sound, put it in every song he produces from this moment forward. There’s nothing that the sound of Zuko’s laugh wouldn't enhance.

“Also, last week I told you that I was on a failed date,” Sokka realizes. “What kind of man do you think I am, already hypothetically moved on into a relationship?”

“I don’t judge,” Zuko replies, holding his hands up.

“Ah,” he says. “Good to know, I guess.”

Zuko, while not smiling, looks vaguely happy. Which makes Sokka smile. 

_He focuses on that. The vaguely happy look. Rather than why Sokka didn’t just say that Jet couldn’t be his boyfriend, because he wasn’t_ into _boys. Sokka will absolutely not focus on_ that _, no way._

The next act, some punk rock band called The Sandbenders, starts their set, so the boys turn their attention to the stage. Sokka feels slightly misplaced without a drink in his hand to sip on, but he nods his head to the beat and hopes Zuko doesn’t feel as awkward as he does.

“All right, this next one is called ‘Theft,’ if we can fucking untangle these cords, Haru, there’s something wrong with these speakers, if you don’t mind getting your fine ass over here?” the main singer yells over the tavern’s noise.

“Pretty songs,” Sokka says, for the sake of saying _something_.

“Yeah,” Zuko agrees, a slight smile on his face before he looks awkwardly down again at his entangled hands. 

They quietly vibe in silence until the lead singer taps the microphone obnoxiously, now that it works again. “All right fuckers, here’s ‘Theft’!”

“Hey Sokka!”

He turns around to see Aang and Katara heading to the clear area right next to the stage, close to where Sokka and Zuko are sitting.

“What’s up?” he says as they approach the table.

“Now that the fast-paced music started, we were going to go dance, if you wanted to join us,” Aang says loudly over the music, smiling at Zuko. “No offense, Blue Spirit man. Your stuff, while a bit too slow to dance to, was absolutely beautiful to listen to.”

“Thanks,” Zuko says, looking a tad bashful. _Bashful? Ugh._

“Um, Aang and Katara, this is Zuko,” Sokka introduces them. “Zuko, this is my sister, Katara, and her fiancé, Aang.”

“Nice to meet you,” Katara gushes, leaning in a bit. “Aang didn’t give your music enough justice. Your lyrics were incredible. The level of detail in them is insane. Ours are rarely like that--” Sokka elbows her “--sorry Sokka, but come on! Zuko, are all your lyrics true?”

“I write them about my life, yeah,” Zuko mutters, his voice transforming into something rougher, more guarded, than the voice Sokka had come to learn.

“That is _very_ brave of you,” Katara says, reaching her hand out to touch Zuko’s arm. He immediately moves it out of her reach.

“I didn’t ask your opinion,” he seethes, and _whoa that escalated_.

“All right, let’s go dance,” Sokka interjects, grabbing onto Katara and pulling her with him. “Zuko, it was nice seeing you again!”

“Sorry about that,” he hears Aang tell Zuko before following them to the dance floor.

“What the fuck is his problem?” Katara mutters when they’re out of earshot.

“Just leave him alone,” Sokka says through closed teeth in his fake smile. He spins Katara around when they’ve finally found a somewhat empty spot on the floor. “Not everyone likes it when you get emotional with them three seconds after meeting.”

“Whatever,” she replies, spinning back into Sokka when he flicks up his wrist.

“You guys ready to rock??!!?!” the lead singer, somewhat unnecessarily, screams into the mic, and Aang loses his mind.

“We’re ready!!!” he yells out, turning back towards Sokka and Katara. “Katara, take my hand.”

Sokka’s sister blushes and leaves him to grab Aang’s hand. They move around each other in familiar ease.

“Aang, stop stealing my dancing partner,” Sokka sighs, not maliciously. He resigns himself to swaying back and forth by himself as Aang and Katara laugh, making circles around him. He moves his shoulders around and lets his arms dangle away.

“Typical of Twinkletoes to steal the Sugar Queen away,” he hears Toph laugh a few minutes later. She holds out her hand, and Sokka grins and grabs it. 

“You don’t know what you’re in for, Toph!” Katara calls out, giggling.

“What you _mean_ to say is that Snoozles doesn’t know what’s about to hit him,” she cheekily replies, using her grip on Sokka’s hands to immediately throw him out, making him stumble into the group dancing closest to them. 

Sokka looks back at Toph incredulously to see her wide smile and sparkling eyes. He grins and mumbles a quick apology to the people he was slammed into, and then runs back over to her.

“My god, woman, you’re making my head spin,” he jokes, taking her hands in his own again. “Better warn a guy next time before you throw him into the abyss.”

“Okay,” Toph says, clicking her tongue. “This is your warning.”

Sokka isn’t surprised by the drop in his stomach when Toph immediately throws him out onto a new set of people again. He goes through the rhythm of apologizing and going back to Toph, getting thrown out again, apologizing and going back to Toph. By the time the song finishes, there’s a wide, clear area around them that everyone else is avoiding.

They continue to dance to the rest of The Sandbender’s set. 

“Is this even dancing?” Sokka laughs over the music at one point.

“It’s like you’re my boomerang!” Toph yells, after a particularly strong push away. Sokka laughs more at this as he gets up from the dirty floor.

“Whatever you say, Toph.”

Eventually, the music starts to die down, and the lead singer takes the mic again. “That’s it, we’re done, we’re going to pack up now. Hope you liked the music, but if you didn’t, then you can come suck my dick. Just kidding.” He pauses. Then mumbles, “Actually, it’s been a while, so maybe I’m not kidding. I don’t know. Find me and find out.”

Katara’s got a look of disgust on her face as she walks towards Toph and Sokka. “Toph, you ready to start setting up after those gross guys?”

“Yeah, okay,” she says, stepping in to give Sokka a hug. She only comes up to his mid-chest. Sokka gives her a pat on the head before she steps away. “Cheer for me out there, Snoozles.”

“Remember me when you’re famous!” he calls after them as they head up the stage stairs. Suki’s already getting things assembled, and Aang is talking to her, animated, as she nods along and plugs in their equipment.

Sokka glances back over at Zuko, but his Uncle is sitting next to him again, and they’re chatting gently with each other. Sokka decides to not disturb the peace. He doesn’t know if Zuko would be mad at him in association for Katara’s words, and he’s not feeling brave enough to find out. Instead, Sokka saunters back over to the bar, Haru waving a greeting as he serves some people closer to the door.

“Hey tushycakes!” he hears someone yell from far behind him. Sokka groans. “Why don’t you sit over here with the big kids?”

“You know, Jet, I am actually really comfortable right here,” Sokka responds, not bothering to look back at Jet and his cronies in their booth.

“They bothering you?” Haru asks, finally walking over to Sokka. Haru eyes Jet, who is in his booth rambunctiously singing renditions of songs from The Sandbenders that they all just heard.

“You know how Jet is,” Sokka sighs, smiling at his friend. “They’re fine.”

“Just give me the word and I can kick them out for you,” Haru comments, frowning a bit.

“What, and lose half of your business?” Sokka laughs. “Just how much alcohol have you sold them tonight? And you’d want them to leave?”

Haru smiles a bit at that. “Fair point. Why are there so few courteous customers that end up spending hundreds each night?”

“Seems kinda messed up,” Sokka sympathizes.

“Yeah,” Haru hums. “The Gaang got a good set tonight?”

“As always,” Sokka beams, leaning into the bar and propping his face up on the palm of his hand. “Whipped up a new song this week, so it’s going to be special. And I think Toph put together a new solo drum thing, which should be intriguing at best.”

“Can’t wait for it,” Haru says, sending Sokka a genuine smile. “Need anything to drink while we wait for them to start?”

“Just some water would be great, thanks,” Sokka says, smiling back at his friend.

They chit chat until Aang grabs the mic.

“People of Tyro’s Tavern, hello! We are The Gaang, and we are so excited to be playing for you tonight. Especially following two great acts, let’s get some applause for The Blue Spirit and for The Sandbenders! Now, we’re going to start off with some local favorites, the first one being ‘Mint’! Our good friend Sokka,” Aang points to him, and he salutes dramatically in response, “helped me write this one, which was inspired by the beautiful guitarist in the corner there,” and Katara blushes and scoffs, “anyways, let’s get this started!”

Sokka lets out a whoop and Haru joins in. 

Their music is a modest success. The group is obviously having a fun time on stage. Aang coyly looks at Katara when he sings some of the sweeter, softer lyrics, and she blushes at him constantly. Toph gets a full 12 minutes of solo drum time, which Suki eventually ends with a sharp jut on her violin. 

“We’ve got one more song for you guys tonight, if you’ll have it,” Aang says, a tad breathless and smiling into the crowd. Sokka cheers with the audience, and he notices that Zuko and his Uncle are still at their table near the stage, patiently listening to the tavern’s sound. “Before we play it, let’s give a shoutout to Toph, on the drums; Suki, on the violin; Katara, with her guitar-a,” Aang jokes, and _Sokka couldn’t understand why he had to make that joke every single time he did the final introductions, didn’t get why his sister still lets him do it_ , “I’m Aang, and again, there’s a handsome fellow in blue over by the bar named Sokka who writes most of our lyrics,” he says, pointing at Sokka. Sokka waves a bit in reply, and Haru reaches out to shake his shoulder, hyping Sokka up enough to smile. “And we’re The Gaang, and we’ll be back here as soon as Haru lets us.”

“How about next weekend?” Haru shouts, and the tavern laughs.

“We might take you up on that!” Suki yells, her voice carried further on the mic. 

“Okay, settle down,” Aang says, smiling and moving his hands down in front of him as if to shush the whole tavern. “So, this song we’re about to do is brand new, hopefully you guys will like it. Sokka wrote it without telling any of us and then left us with lyrics we probably don’t do justice, but hopefully you’ll think it’s good enough. It doesn’t have a name yet! But I’m liking ‘Goldie,’ maybe, ‘Smoky Smoke Eyes,’ or even, ‘Love,’ but is that too general?”

“Get on with it!” Sokka yells, cupping his hands around his mouth to make his sound travel to Aang, loud and clear.

Aang laughs. “All right. Let’s just leave this one ‘untitled’ for now.”

And with that, his bass line begins. Katara soon begins to strum her guitar, and it’s just to the two of them, playing in harmony, for a good thirty seconds. Suki lifts up her violin and begins to slowly play along. Aang opens his mouth. Toph picks up her drumsticks.

_You lit my fire, stained my mind crimson_

_Dirty desires I learned forbidden_

_Lick with the tendrils of flame in my face_

_I look to your eyes, a golden embrace_

_Who ever thought it’d be here that we meet_

_Smoke climbing in through my eyes to my feet_

_Fahrenheit rising along my bare spine_

_Cracks through my ribs and I know that you’re mine_

_Fireproof skin doesn’t last very long_

_I’m ashes inside when you finish your song_

_Couldn’t say I’d ever hurt from the flame_

_But I’m breathless and starving and you’re all to blame_

_Name me a problem that your voice won’t solve;_

_A paradox question that can’t be resolved._

_Died in the lightning you cast on my mind_

_Discovered death gentle and loving and kind._

_Fireproof skin doesn’t last very long_

_I’m ashes inside when you finish your song_

_Couldn’t say I’d ever hurt from the flame_

_But I’m breathless and starving and you’re all to blame_

_Breathless and starving and you’re who I blame_

_You tore all the rules and the map of this game_

_I’m reborn inside when you finish your song_

_Fireproof skin doesn’t last very long_

_Fireproof skin doesn’t last very long_

It’s not shocking that Zuko turns to look at Sokka as soon as the song is over. What _is_ more shocking, in Sokka’s opinion, is that he himself has been staring at Zuko the entire time Aang’s been singing. And _yes_ , it’s true that Sokka had Zuko in mind while writing the lyrics, but in a purely inspirational way ( _right?_ ). When he wrote it, he was theoretically thinking about someone meeting Zuko and feeling a connection with the guy instantly. Maybe even having that connection lead to something more down the line. Purely hypothetical. But when Aang sings, Sokka can’t look anywhere but at Zuko. 

_And for what? Approval?_ Sokka wants to laugh the thought away, but when Zuko makes eye contact with Sokka and gives him an ever-slight smile, Sokka breathes in relief. Maybe he really did need the approval. _From someone outside of the band. Of course. Probably._

Sokka watches as Zuko say something to his Uncle, and then, somewhat lucidly, watches as Zuko gets out of his chair and walks towards him.

“Hey,” Sokka greets, when Zuko is close enough to hear him. “How’d you like it?”

“I didn’t hate it,” he replies, a huff of laughter escaping past his lips. “Very impressive rhymes. Especially in that one song, ‘Here’s Your Haiku’.”

Sokka groans. ‘Here’s Your Haiku’ was one of the first songs he ever wrote, once the group was done writing parodies but not done writing joke songs. The chorus goes, ‘squish squash sling that slang / I’m always right back at ya like my boomerang / that’s right, I’m Sokka / it’s pronounced with an -akka / and young ladies, I just rocked ya.’ It originated from a haiku assignment from a particularly rude English teacher. Sokka had written the words out in spite, poking fun at the poetry form his teacher had spent so long droning on about. The Gaang occasionally plays ‘Here’s Your Haiku’ when it’s late at night, late in the set. O _therwise known as when the audience stops caring about the lyrics. Figures that Zuko was still paying attention._

“Actually, if you can believe it, I wrote that one when I was still in high school,” Sokka says, attempting a serious voice. “I’m something of a child prodigy, myself.”

“I see,” Zuko says, biting down on his lip. _Maybe to keep himself from smiling more. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking. Agni knows_. “I’m honored to have heard your work live, in that case.”

“Everybody is,” Sokka sighs, examining his nails. “If you want an autograph, just let me know. I sign everything except for skin below the waist.”

Zuko’s eyes bulge out the slightest amount.

“Ha!” Sokka laughs, pointing at Zuko. “You should see your face. Hilarious. Anyways, yeah, ‘Here’s Your Haiku is pretty bad, I get it. The Gaang all gets it, too. But besides that obvious standout, did you like it?”

“The sound was a bit… eclectic,” Zuko says, choosing his words carefully. _Sokka gets it. Their sound_ is _rather eclectic. Toph listens to nothing but death metal and old-time rock and roll and embodies that with her drumming. Aang prefers electroswing, disco, and pop, which comes through in how he helps Sokka structure the lyrics. Suki listens to solo string instrumental work, which gives her the notion that she doesn’t have to follow the lead of the other instruments of their songs (which sometimes works, but mostly doesn’t). And, perhaps the most damning of them all, Katara has said herself that she doesn’t really like listening to music too much in the first place. She wouldn’t know a good song from a bad song if her life depended on it. The combination of everyone is hazardous, and results in an abundance of disaster songs. Sokka loves it_. “But the energy is unbeatable.”

“You know what? I’ll take that,” Sokka replies. “Much better reaction than we usually get, honestly.”

“Oh,” Zuko stammers. “No, I mean, I liked it. It was very… fun. Uncle was dancing a bit in his seat to some of the songs, even.”

Sokka grins, and Zuko’s eyes soften a smidge.

“That last song was incredible,” he says gingerly. “Did you really only write it this week?”

“Yeah,” Sokka flushes. “Had a random burst of inspiration last weekend. Not too sure where it came from.”

_That’s a lie. He’s face to face with his inspiration_.

“Well, it was beautiful,” Zuko comments. “Do you have it recorded yet? I’d love to listen to it again.”

“I’m playing around with the audio file now, but it’s not quite finished yet,” Sokka admits.

“Oh,” Zuko says. “Well, then I should give you my number. So you can send it to me when it is finished.”

Sokka’s brain short-circuits. 

“No pressure, though,” Zuko rushes in. “If you don’t like to share your music files, or whatever. You know what? It’s really not a big deal. Never mi—”

“Here,” Sokka cuts in, scrambling to grab his phone out of his pocket. “What’s your number? I’ll text you.”

“Oh,” Zuko breathes. “Okay.”

Zuko recites the digits, and Sokka carefully punches them in. Once he saves the number, he delicately types out a message, a short little ‘Hey! This is Sokka :’)’, and anxiously looks back at Zuko.

“Did you get it?”

Just then, Sokka hears a beep coming out of Zuko’s pocket. He lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. Zuko looks towards his phone. 

“Got it,” he whispers.

“Good,” Sokka says back, just as softly. Zuko looks back up at him.

They look at each other for longer than is necessary. Eventually Zuko clears his throat.

“I should get going, Uncle Iroh and I have to be up early to open up the tea shop,” Zuko says, blinking rapidly to clear the intense eye contact between the two of them. “But I look forward to getting that audio.”

“Right,” Sokka smiles, nodding his head.

“Nice to see you again,” Zuko waves, walking away from Sokka and back towards Iroh, who is waiting by the tavern’s front door. Sokka waves back, looks down, bites his lip, then turns back towards the stage. 

Aang is directing Suki as she disassembles their drum set for Toph. Toph’s sitting on the edge of the stage, absolutely not helping anyone out with moving their equipment, instead talking animatedly to one of the guys that hangs around Jet ( _Sokka thinks his name is Duke?_ ). Katara is standing near Aang, but she’s also not helping. Instead, she’s staring at Sokka, a distant look on her face.

Sokka sighs and turns back to the bar. He closes his tab with Haru and bids the other man goodnight. Then he meanders over to the stage.

“Oh, Sokka, great, you’re here!” Aang exclaims. “We’re mostly done, Suki’s about to bring the car around, so do you mind just helping me carry these?” He gestures to the disassembled drum pieces.

“No problem, Aang,” he replies, grabbing some pieces in his hands.

“How’d your jerk friend like our stuff?” Katara huffs.

“Katara, he’s not a jerk,” Sokka sighs, walking outside to wait for Suki. Katara follows him out. “And, for the record, he really liked it. Said you guys had a ‘good energy’.”

“What is that even supposed to mean?” Katara questions angrily.

“It was a compliment!” Sokka insists. “Calm down!”

Suki pulls up with her car, so Sokka ignores Katara’s next few words and goes back to the van’s trunk. Aang soon brings the rest of the equipment, and the boys beg Suki for her help putting everything in the back. ( _Only Suki can make it all fit. Every time. It’s a talent_.) Katara goes in to grab Toph, and they bid Haru goodbye and start to head home.

Suki drops Sokka, Katara, and Aang off first. They quickly bring the instruments back into the studio.

Aang yawns. “I’m going to take Appa on a quick walk before bed, be back soon.”

He kisses Katara on the cheek before grabbing Appa’s leash and heading out with him.

“I can’t believe I have to work tomorrow,” Sokka groans, moving into their living room and sitting on the couch. “Remind me again why I need to have a job.”

“Can’t go on shopping trips if you don’t have any money,” Katara says, flopping down next to Sokka.

“You got me there,” he sighs.

Momo creeps out of Sokka’s bedroom and hops up onto his lap. Sokka strokes the cat’s chin for a bit, enjoying the silent, steady company of his sister.

“You know,” she eventually says, “I really did like playing the new song tonight. It comes from a different part of you than usual, and I think that’s great.”

Sokka looks over at her and carefully grins. “Thanks, Katara, that means a lot.”

She hums in acknowledgement, and Sokka notices a small but bright twinkle in her eyes. “You know, I couldn’t help but notice that a certain someone had golden eyes tonight.”

“Katara.”

“Golden eyes, like in the song.”

“Katara!”

“And that same person with the golden eyes also makes songs.”

“Stop!”

“All these facts seem to match your lyrics pretty well.”

"Really.”

“Just an observation,” she concludes, examining her nails.

Sokka doesn’t have the energy to talk to her any longer. “I’m going to bed,” he says, grabbing Momo and standing up. “Stop observing me.”

He slams his bedroom door behind him to ignore Katara’s giggles. 

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

In the few days since their last show, Aang has managed to mess up 37 recordings of their untitled song. He’s apologized every time; unfortunately, 9 of these apologies came midway through the recording and butchered all hopes of it being salvageable. 

Take number 32 might be Sokka’s best bet; that time, the only mistake was a misplaced sneeze Aang had after singing the first chorus. 

_But I’m breathless and starving and you’re all to blame ***sneeze***_

****

There’s not much Sokka can do with their audio editing program. If he cuts out the sneeze, he can’t add in empty space to make the pacing match with the instrumental recordings. The more Sokka thinks about it, the more he thinks maybe a listener would perceive the sneeze as an artistic choice, not a mistake. It might be wishful thinking, but that’s okay. _Fine, so it’s definitely wishful thinking. But it could be so much worse than just a little sneeze!_

On Thursday night, Sokka doesn’t have to go into work, so he texts everyone for a band meeting.

**Suki [4:56PM]:** wasn’t today ur day off sokka

**Suki [4:56PM]:** why would we meet if u dont have free pizza 4 us

**Sokka [4:57PM]:** suki plz

**Katara [4:57PM]:** someone call toph

**Katara [4:57PM]:** see if she’s free

**Aang [4:57PM]:** on it

**Suki [4:59PM]:** what are we getting if not free pizza

**Sokka [4:59PM]:** u get to hear the untitled recording for the first time :’)))

**Suki [4:59PM]:** rude of u to still not name the song

**Sokka [5:00PM]:** we can work on that 2nite !!!!!

**Sokka [5:00PM]:**!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Suki [5:01PM]:** ok fine im in. what time

**Aang [5:03PM]:** toph is in too! wanna do 7?

**Suki [5:04PM]:** bet

Aang ends up running to the grocery and picking up some frozen pizzas to make in their oven, because he’s nothing if not a people pleaser. He brings Katara along with him, because he’s also nothing if not desperately in love with her. Sokka browses the web in the meantime, losing himself in the happy simplicity of having nothing to do.

“Sokka, come help with groceries!” he eventually hears his sister call out from the front door. Sokka stashes his laptop away and moves Momo off his lap.

“Sorry, my guy,” Sokka apologizes. “ _Someone_ has to keep order around this house.”

Momo just meows. 

Katara’s preheating their oven and Aang is sitting on the counter closest to her, chatting away. When he spots Sokka, he beams.

“Catch!” he says, throwing a small packet at Sokka. Sokka just barely grasps it. “They had a new flavor of seal jerky at the store, we figured you might want to try it.”

Sokka looks at the package. _Arctic Hickory Smoked. Yum._

He tears open the package immediately. “Thanks,” he manages out before stuffing in his first handful. “What time is it?”

“Quarter to seven,” Katara responds, closing their oven shut. “What have you been up to?”

“Oh, you know,” Sokka drawls, savoring his jerky. “Perusing the internet.”

“Perfect, then since you’re not busy, do you mind helping Aang with putting everything away?”

“Fine, fine,” he sighs, putting his jerky down on the counter. He moves towards Aang and follows the younger man’s every word on where to put every item. Although Sokka’s lived with them in the house since pretty much the beginning, he still mixes up which drawers serve which purposes.

After a particular request, Sokka frowns. 

“No offense, Aang, but I’m pretty sure bread doesn’t go in the fridge,” he grumbles, despite obeying Aang’s direction. 

“Helps prevent mold,” Aang replies, scrunching up his face. “No one likes moldy bread.”

“I don’t know,” Sokka shrugs playfully, walking back to grab more things, “mold _does_ add a little bit of texture to everything. A little bit of taste.”

“That’s disgusting,” Katara scoffs, walking back into the kitchen from her room, now wearing pajamas.

“You’re disgusting,” Sokka jabs back, with absolutely no bite to his words.

They bicker until Aang begs them to stop, but they start back up again within seconds. Eventually Suki and Toph knock on the door, and Sokka is absolutely delighted to leave the conversation ( _which had started out so teasing and innocent, but then serious jabs were thrown, and honestly Sokka couldn’t_ believe _that Katara really thought his secret handshake with Aang was “too simple to be cool”_ ).

“About time you guys got here,” he says, opening the door for the girls.

“About time you opened the door!” Toph jokes, walking confidently into the house. Sokka quickly moves the shoes on their entrance floor to be closer to the wall, so that she doesn’t trip.

“Wait a minute,” Suki pauses, only one foot inside their house. “If it’s your night off, Sokka, why does it smell like pizza?”

“Surprise!” Aang gushes, smiling from the kitchen. “We got frozen pizza! Cheese pizza! Pepperoni pizza! Absolutely no pineapple or anchovies or onions or anything!”

“Awesome,” Suki laughs. “That’s so great, thank you, Aang!”

“It’s less fun than usual,” Sokka’s compelled to point out.

Suki crosses over the threshold and jokingly punches his arm. “No need to be a killjoy, Sokka.”

“Your wish is my command, m’lady,” Sokka says, bowing dramatically in front of her.

Suki snorts and leaves him to join Katara in the kitchen. Sokka grins.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

They eat their pizza, spill their tea, and soon enough, The Gaang is all gathered by Sokka’s laptop in their shoddy music studio.

“Does this new song even have a name yet?” Toph asks.

“Not yet,” Sokka admits, frowning. “Anyone have any ideas?”

“’Melon Lord,’” Toph immediately offers.

No one responds for a few seconds.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Toph, why… why ‘Melon Lord’?” Katara prompts. Suki worries her lips and looks between the other two women.

“Why not?” Toph defends. “What? Do you guys not like it?”

“No! I mean, it’s not bad,” Katara reluctantly says.

Toph frowns. “Stop lying.”

“Anyone else have other ideas?” Sokka throws out. 

Katara grumbles, “Not melon lord,” and Toph hits her elbow. Sokka exhales. 

“Since there aren’t any other ideas, let’s just put a pin in this conversation and leave it as ‘untitled’ for the moment. Now, can I get a drumroll please?”

They respond enthusiastically to his request. Toph even grabs her drumsticks from her drum set and dings them across the floor.

“Here’s the first recording of ‘untitled,’ in three, two, one…” and Sokka presses play.

The recording is four minutes, eighteen seconds long. Sokka’s never felt time go by slower. He closes his eyes throughout the whole experience, determined not to see their faces as they listen for the first time. When the music dies down, he opens his eyes one at a time and grimaces. “Thoughts?” he asks.

He’s met with momentary quiet.

“For the record, I think it is really good.” Aang is the first to break the silence spell.

“Why does Twinkletoes sneeze in this one?” Toph asks. 

“It’s artistic?” Sokka offers. Toph makes a face. He sighs. “Is it really that bad?”

“I think it’s very good,” Katara says, reaching out to put her hand on Sokka’s arm.

“Katara, come on! I asked you to stop lying once tonight already,” Toph interjects, and Sokka swipes his arm out of his sister’s grasp.

“C’mon guys, really?” Sokka asks desperately. “Suki, you’ve been awfully quiet. What do you think? Honestly?”

“Well,” Suki starts, “I think you did the best that you could with the equipment that we have. Honestly.”

“I agree,” Katara says. When Toph doesn’t immediately call her out, Sokka believes her words. It doesn’t make him feel much better; bottom line is, the recording isn’t of a professional quality. Sokka groans.

“Hey, since we’re here, can we actually listen to all the recordings that we have? Of every song, I mean?” Aang asks. “It’s pretty nice, listening to the music we make instead of focusing on how to make it.”

“Yeah, sure,” Sokka concedes, pulling up the other files on the computer.

They listen through every song that Sokka has pulled together. ‘Mint’ is the only song that sounds vaguely skillfully done. Appa’s barking can be heard in their recording of ‘Sweat’. ‘My Girlfriend, The Moon’ is off tempo. Sokka has his head in his hands by the end of their listening.

“Well, the good news is most of the little hiccups in recording can be helped by changing our recording location and equipment,” Aang provides hopefully.

“Yeah, well, the bad news is that we have no other recording location or any other recording equipment,” Sokka moans, driving his head deeper into his hands. “So, it’s kind of a moot point.”

“You know what? Hey. We made those songs. And that’s impressive enough on its own,” Suki comments, leaning forward on her bean bag. “The recordings may not be the best quality, but that doesn’t reflect the quality of us as a band, of us as people. They certainly don’t reflect your producing abilities, Sokka, because we’re using ancient software to get these done. So I think, because they don’t sound disastrous, we should take that as a win.”

“Suki’s right,” Aang agrees, nodding. “And I feel proud to have some capturing of the songs that we made together. That’s a beautiful thing.”

Katara leans into Aang’s shoulder and rests her head, smiling. “I agree with Aang.”

Sokka looks away. “Stop giving me the oogies,” he mutters, keeping a bored façade despite Katara giggling in the background. “But thanks,” he adds, gesturing to them all. “I guess I needed to hear that. I’m glad these weren’t a total failure.”

Afterwards, the group talks about other songs to record. They haven’t ever attempted at capturing ‘Air Nomad,’ Aang’s personal favorite piece of theirs. Toph insists on recording ‘Metal Bend’ soon, and Suki wants to preserve ‘Fan & Sword.’ It gets late; Toph and Suki head out, Aang grabs Appa for a quick walk around the neighbourhood, and Katara gives Sokka a kiss on the forehead before starting to head back to her room.

“Katara?” Sokka calls out.

“Yeah?” she responds, turning back to look at her brother.

“You didn’t say a song that you definitely want to record.”

Her mouth upturns slightly. “I’m thinking we should record ‘Kya.’”

‘Kya’ is a song that Sokka wrote after finding his childhood diary. After he found the entry from when his mom, Kya, the song’s inspiration, passed away. It’s the only song that Katara sings. The siblings know there’s something subconsciously sacred about the lyrics, and Aang is respectful enough to always hand Katara the microphone during the few times they perform it live.

Sokka nods, smiling gently back. “I’d like that.”

“I think she would, too,” Katara murmurs. She pats the door frame once and continues on her way to her bedroom. “Goodnight, Sokka.”

“Goodnight.”

Before he goes to bed, he uploads the ‘untitled’ recording onto his google drive and makes the file public. He stares at his phone for ten minutes before making his decision. _After all, wouldn’t it be weirder for him to never text than to text a few days later than expected?_

**Sokka [10:43PM]:** finally finished messing around with the audio file!!! here’s the link if you still wanted to listen to it

**Sokka [10:43PM]:** hopefully you like it

**Sokka [10:44PM]:** if you don’t that’ll be okay!! but hopefully you will

**Sokka [10:44PM]:** just lemme know. either way. ok gnight sleep tight don’t let the bed bugs bite

He regrets everything immediately after it’s sent. He huddles under his covers, trying not to overthink it all. Momo tries to push his head underneath the covers, and Sokka takes that as his cue to stop overthinking. Still, he stays awake for another hour. He never gets a text back. Midnight approaches and Sokka groans, clutches Momo close, and goes to sleep.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

**Zuko [5:46AM]:** What are you doing today?

Sokka wakes up earlier than usual, before 10AM. Instead of feeling drowsy and sleepy, though, glancing at the text on his phone jolts him awake. Momo hisses at the sudden movement of him violently sitting up in bed.

_What is he doing today?_ Working the night shift. Browsing through videos on the internet again ( _yesterday he had watched a tutorial on how to take care of a bonsai tree, which seemed worthy of continuing to investigate_ ). Feeding Momo and Appa breakfast.

He was doing nothing that couldn’t prevent him from being free during the daytime.

**Sokka [9:36AM]:** sorry, just woke up! but im free! why!

His phone dings a few minutes later.

**Aang [9:41AM]:** ur horoscope today says that ur in a unique situation right now and might need to ask friends for advice !!!!!! just wanna let u know that i am here for u !!!!!!!

Sokka groans and buries his face back in his pillow. Momo meows at him, now desperately trying to get the man up ( _probably so that he goes to feed him— definitely that, actually)_. Sokka scrambles out a text to Aang before getting out of bed.

**Sokka [9:42AM]:** leave me alone, im fine

**Aang [9:42AM]:** :( had a feeling that ud say that. my horoscope said id be met with resistance 2day :(

Appa watches with curiosity as Sokka trudges into the kitchen and heads over to the peanut butter. A spoonful of the stuff is one of Sokka’s favorite snacks. By the time Sokka’s dipped a spoon in, Appa is by his feet, eyes soft but incessantly boring into Sokka’s. 

Sokka can’t resist Appa’s puppy eyes.

“Fine, you can have it,” Sokka sighs, lowering his spoon so Appa can lick it. 

His phone dings again. The spoon falls out of his hand and onto the floor, much to Appa’s delight.

**Zuko [9:47AM]:** I’m working until 2 at the tea shop, but afterwards do you want to meet at my place? I think we could work on refining your audio. Bring your computer?

Sokka wants to die. For one, he can think of nothing else he’d rather do than hang out in Zuko’s home with Zuko himself. There’s something compelling about the man, and Sokka needs to be around him more. _It’s an urge. He can acknowledge it._ But on the flipside, Caldera is a thirty-minute drive from his house. And his sad car, banished in the driveway with a plethora of maladies, probably wouldn’t be able to make the journey.

**Sokka [9:49AM]:** i would love to!!!! but my car is dead :( and everyones working, so i cant get a ride :(

**Zuko [9:51AM]:** Where do you live?

**Sokka [9:52AM]:** south tribe, why?

**Zuko [9:55AM]:** Just come over to the tea shop, it’s nearby. I can give you a ride to my place after my shift’s done.

Zuko texts him the address of the tea shop, and Sokka gulps. He quickly feeds the animals and goes into his room.

“Looks like I’ll need your help after all, Aang,” Sokka mutters, pulling potential outfits from his closet and sending their pictures Aang’s way.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

Aang helps Sokka decide on a plain blue t-shirt and some ripped black jeans. Sokka pulls his hair into a wolf tail and shifts his puka shell necklace around until it is perfectly centered on his throat. He gives himself a once-over and decides he looks fine. _Good enough, at least. It’s not like he cares too much about what Zuko will think. Even though, like, it will matter to him. A bit. He should want to look good for anyone, right?_

It takes twenty minutes for Sokka to walk to Iroh’s tea shop. It turns out to be a little building sandwiched between offices, with a charming sign reading “The Jasmine Dragon” in the storefront window. It isn’t quite two o’clock by the time Sokka arrives, but he pushes in through the door anyways.

The tea shop is filled with a happy ambiance. Piano music languidly flows over muted conversations, and Sokka wonders if the music playing is a recording of Zuko’s. 

“Sokka!” he hears a warm, grainy voice greet him. Sokka’s eyes find the register and process Iroh, beaming from behind the counter. “Zuko told me you’d be coming in. I am afraid he is busy in the back right now, but please, take a seat! I will bring you some tea.”

“Oh, no, that’s okay,” Sokka buffers, feeling a tad awkward around the old man. “I don’t want to intrude,” _and I can’t afford to spend three dollars on tea_ , “I can just wait around outside until Zuko’s done for the day, no worries.”

“No, no, I insist,” Iroh says confidently, and comes around the counter to usher Sokka into the nearest table. “Tea is one of life’s most simple pleasures, as well as sharing what you have with those you care about. A friend of Zuko’s is a friend of mine. Please, sit, I will bring a pot over for you.”

“Thank you,” Sokka resigns, not emotionally prepared to argue with an elderly man. “That would be very kind of you.”

“My pleasure,” he replies. He walks back behind the counter to prepare the tea. Sokka could swear he saw a sparkle in the old man’s eyes.

Within five minutes, Sokka has a half-drunken cup of tea in front of him, and he’s talking to Iroh about a board game, Pai Sho, with increasing intensity.

“You can develop strategy all you want, but at its very baseline, Pai Sho is just about chance,” Sokka reiterates. “If a certain play keeps on working for you, it’s probably due to luck instead of the play actually being effective.”

“Ah, but luck only goes so far,” Iroh insists. “In order to beat your opponent, you need unmatched wit.”

“But then what happens if you play a match against an equal? Only luck can help you then,” Sokka points out.

“Perhaps,” Iroh concedes. “But if you play a match of Pai Sho against an equal, perhaps you don’t have much wit in the first place.”

Sokka laughs at this, and Iroh joins in as well.

When Sokka has his eyes open enough to see his surroundings, he finds that Zuko, clad in a burgundy button-up and messy apron, has come out of the back and approached their table.

“Uncle, the tarts are out of the oven and ready to go into the display cases,” he says, wiping his hands on his apron. “Sokka, when did you get here?”

Iroh answers for him. “Just a few minutes ago, Zuko, don’t get too flustered. An old man wanted some conversation before you took him away. Thank you for your hard work today.”

Zuko reddens. _Sokka would probably get embarrassed, too, if he got a compliment from a family member in front of someone else. Maybe. He’s not too sure, actually; it doesn’t_ seem _that embarrassing_.

Iroh stands up and gives Zuko a pat on the back before going back behind the counter.

Sokka clears his throat. “So, you ready?”

“Yeah, let me just… one second,” Zuko murmurs, taking his apron off and going to the back once more. He comes back within a minute, top button of his shirt undone, and apron nowhere to be seen. His keys are dangling from his hand.

“Follow me,” Zuko tells him, walking out of the store without waiting to see if Sokka gets up from the table. Sokka waves a goodbye to Iroh and catches up to Zuko.

“I parked around the back,” Zuko mentions when Sokka steps in beside him. “How was your walk over here?” 

“Oh, good,” Sokka replies. “Only took around twenty minutes. Can’t believe I haven’t noticed this place yet, I’ve been living in South Tribe for forever.”

“It’s a humble shop,” Zuko says, stopping in front of a black Honda. “This is my car.”

They clamber in and buckle up. Zuko turns the car on and immediately, an EDM song starts playing loudly. Zuko cringes and reaches to turn it down, but Sokka’s already laughing.

“Never pegged you for an EDM fan,” he giggles. “Wasn’t that The Fire Nation Girls? My god, I remember listening to them back in the day.”

It takes a second but eventually Zuko mutters, “They’re still making music.” Which makes Sokka cackle a bit more. 

“I can’t believe you’ve kept track of them. Local legends of like, what, seven years ago? I wasn’t even old enough for my dad to let me go to shows when they were playing.”

“Funny, seeing as how they’re probably younger than you,” Zuko comments, a sad smile on his face. “I’ve only kept track of them because I know them. Friends of mine.”

“No shit.” Sokka’s in awe. “That’s really cool.”

"Yeah,” Zuko says, smile turning more content as the conversation dotes along. “I guess it is.”

“So um, what did you think of the recording I sent you? Why’d you want to meet at your place?” _Sokka’s heart is hammering in his chest. This is the moment when Zuko could say—Sokka, your composition was so great, it spoke to my heart, let me show you how much it means to me—and Sokka wouldn’t be able to resist saying—Zuko, I’m so glad, those words were for you—---_

“Honestly? The recording was a mess,” Zuko says easily.

“A good mess?” Sokka tries, but Zuko lets out a hearty laugh. Sokka’s mouth opens, and he glares at the other guy.

“No offense!” Zuko says, raising his hands off the steering wheel for a quick moment. “The song itself wasn’t bad, I really like it, remember? But the recording was a bit all over the place. I mean, you even kept in a sneeze.”

“It could be artistic,” Sokka defends.

“It could be fixed, is what it could be,” Zuko sighs. “Which is why I’m bringing you over to my house. My basement’s a recording studio, with soundproof walls and everything. We can work on it down there, to make it better.”

“So I’m just a damsel in distress to you?” Sokka lashes out, and Zuko chokes on air. “You’re going to bring me to your basement and save my honor?”

“Something like that,” Zuko rasps. “I promise you’re going to be doing most of the work, though. I just think the file will be easier to work with if you use my stuff.”

“Well,” Sokka starts, but quickly stops himself. He’s not proud enough to reject a helping hand when he gets one. “That sounds nice, thank you.”

“Anytime,” he responds. 

The rest of the ride goes by smoothly. Sokka is almost nervous to talk to Zuko, but asks questions nonetheless, and feels a small burst of accomplishment when he’s managed to ask one that lands an instant lopsided smile on the other man’s face. He finds out that Zuko mostly works in the back of the tea shop, making pastries, because ‘if Uncle bakes, the shop loses at least half of their product to Uncle’s belly’. He finds out that Zuko’s car has a name ( _Duck, which apparently is also Zuko’s favorite animal_ ). He also finds that Zuko has an unmatched death glare ( _brought on by Sokka joking that duck is one of Sokka’s favorite animals to eat_ ).

Zuko pulls into his driveway and gets out of the car. He swings around quickly enough to open Sokka’s door for him.

“What a gentleman,” Sokka beams, and Zuko reddens in a way that’s already becoming familiar.

“Whatever,” he grunts, waiting for Sokka to inch away from the car before slamming the door shut behind him. “Come on, let’s go in.”

Sokka waits for Zuko to unlock the door, and then the two head inside. Immediately on Sokka’s left is a kitchen, which Zuko steers towards, dropping his keys on the counter.

“You hungry?” Zuko asks, opening a cabinet.

“Always,” Sokka replies. “Whatcha got?”

“Fire flakes, some berries, a bag of seal jerky, some—”

"Stop right there. Seal jerky, please and thank you.”

"Help yourself,” Zuko says, throwing Sokka the bag. Zuko grabs a handful of fire flakes and then heads to a door near the fridge. He opens the door, revealing a set of stairs going down. “After you.”

Sokka nudges his way around Zuko to head down first. The lights are already on, and Sokka can hear soft conversation, though he assumes it must be from some recording accidentally left playing. That is, until he sees Mai and Ty Lee. The two girls are sitting on a couch together in the center of the room, and Mai is braiding Ty Lee’s hair.

“Oh,” Zuko says, after Sokka has stopped to look at the girls. Zuko just about runs into his back. “What are you guys doing down here?”

Ty Lee beams at Sokka and waves enthusiastically, and Sokka, after a quick glance to Zuko, shyly waves back. 

“Don’t get your panties in a wad, Zuko,” Mai drolls, finishing the braid and stretching out on the sofa. “We were just working on a new project. We’ll be out of your hair before you know it.”

“Oh, you guys make music, too? That’s so cool! Mind if I can listen to some?” Sokka asks.

“Idiot, we already did,” Zuko mutters under his breath, but Sokka’s question has already enticed Ty Lee, who gets off the couch and goes near the laptop on a desk in the corner. “This is going to take forever.”

“Let’s start with what you probably know us for,” Ty Lee happily beams from across the room, clacking some buttons on the laptop. She finally looks satisfied, and a second later, Sokka hears the song that Zuko was playing loudly when they first got into his car.

“No way!” Sokka yells over the music. “You two are The Fire Nation Girls?”

“Part of them,” Ty Lee laughs. “Azula’s been busy these last few years, so our newer stuff is just me and Mai.”

“Mai and I,” Zuko corrects under his breath. The girls either don’t hear his correction, or flat out ignore it.

“Who’s Azula?” Sokka asks, beginning to dance along to the movement.

Zuko looks over at Sokka blankly. 

“Zuko’s sister,” Mai butts in, moving over to Ty Lee and cutting off the music.

“Hey! What was that for?” Ty Lee stubbornly asks, her arms folding in front of her chest. Mai rolls her eyes.

“Come on, let’s go home. Zuko needs the studio,” Mai says. When she starts to walk upstairs, Ty Lee sighs, but follows.

“Have fun with Zuko, handsome,” she smiles at Sokka as she passes by him.

“Thanks, Ty Lee,” he calls to her retreating back. He turns his attention back to Zuko. “So, you ready to get started?”

Zuko jolts back to life. “Yeah, go ahead and sit on the couch and get your laptop set up there. I’m going to grab mine and then we can start.”

Sokka plops down on the couch and follows Zuko’s instructions. He’s just pulled up the audio program he’s been using when Zuko hesitantly sits down gently next to him. As Zuko boots up his own laptop, Sokka notices the three inches of space between their thighs and focuses on it for longer than he’d like to admit.

Sokka only snaps out of it when Zuko clears his throat. “So, I was thinking you can play me each instrument on its own track? I’m assuming that’s how you put the song together. Which, sometimes, is the way to go, but in your case, I think it mismatched the rhythm of all the tracks. It sounds almost fuzzy, really. Which can be good for some genres, but I think this ‘untitled’ song would sound best cleaned up.”

Most of what Zuko says flies right over Sokka’s head. Still, he agrees, and pulls up the individual instrument tracks. Zuko helps him isolate the cough in Aang’s vocals, and using Zuko’s audio software, they’re able to replace it with silence. Zuko then helps Sokka match up his individual audio clips so that nothing sounds off-beat. 

“How’d you get so good at this?” Sokka asks, groaning into his hands when Zuko seamlessly merges two layers that Sokka had been trying to merge for days beforehand. 

“I’ve been around music my whole life,” Zuko replies. “My father ran a recording company and worked with music distribution. I’ve always been happier playing, myself, but my whole family knows the basics.”

“Great. You only know the basics, yet you are completely blowing my mind right now.”

“I didn’t say I only knew the basics,” Zuko teases, completely taking Sokka aback. “I knew the basics when I was like, ten years old. I’ve gotten better with time and reflection. It helps getting to create my own music, instead of following the formulaic rules I had to follow under my father’s company.”

“What was your father’s company?”

“Fire Nation Records?” Zuko offers, looking at Sokka nervously and gauging his reaction. 

“Oh, Fire? Fire Nation… Fire Nation Records. Fire Nation Records?” Sokka processes out loud. 

Fire Nation Records used to be the biggest music company in town, the only one that seemed to have the national connections for artists to make big contracts. They were known for their successful signed artists—The Fire Nation Girls, Phoenix King, The Rough Rhinos, Zhao’s Demise, and more. But they were also known for being a dominating and domineering force. Artists lost their creative freedom if they signed with them. The money, while hefty, never seemed quite good enough to let go of artistic control, in Sokka’s opinion. But it tempted enough artists, up until seven years ago, when it just… shut down. Hundreds of people lost their jobs. The music industry in town suffered, and many local venues shut down as a result. Tyro’s Tavern was one of the lucky businesses that survived through it all.

“I take it you’ve heard of it?”

“You… did you work there?”

Zuko quickly shakes his head. “No, I was always too young. Mostly, Uncle Iroh taught me how to work with the music, and I would occasionally help out The Fire Nation Girls with their composition.”

"Right, because your sister was with The Fire Nation Girls,” Sokka says, gathering together all of this new information in his head. _It all seems obvious, in retrospect. If Zuko’s father ran a recording company, it makes sense that it’d be the one that his own_ sister _found fame through_.

Zuko frowns. “I don’t really like to talk about her, actually.”

Suddenly, Zuko’s own lyrics come back to Sokka’s memory. _“I’ve got a sister I can’t seem to mention/without feeling fucking insane.”_ Sokka’s heard Zuko sing the line twice so far. He lets out a choked noise and begins to form an apology on his lips.

Zuko shakes his head before Sokka can get the words out. “Don’t worry about it. Long story short, I was raised around this equipment. Of course I’m proficient with it.”

Sokka is grateful for the other man cutting him a break, and he sighs. “I wish that The Gaang had good equipment for me to be proficient in,” he admits after a pause.

“Honestly, I’m impressed that you managed to create a halfway decent song with what you do have. And, um, hey, if you guys are interested, I do have this basement studio and it would probably be easier to re-record your songs here,” Zuko offers. “I mean, I understand that the others might not want to come to some stranger’s basement to make music, but I do have the technology and know-how to make the process better and faster. Just an offer, no pressure to take it.”

“Zuko, what are you talking about? That would be great!” Sokka insists enthusiastically. 

“Really?”

“Really,” Sokka confirms, smiling. “Thank you. We’re trying to record enough of our stuff to make a CD to sell whenever The Gaang plays. Having at least one song that does _not_ sound like utter trash would be amazing.”

A ghost of Sokka’s own big grin is mirrored on Zuko’s face.

“How many songs were you all planning to put on your CD?”

“Seven? Or eight?” Sokka thinks out loud. “There’s ‘untitled’, which, by the way, needs a title, so if you think of a one, please let me know… But there’s also ‘Mint’, ‘My Girlfriend, The Moon’, ‘Air Nomad’, ‘Sweat’—”

"What kind of song name is ‘Sweat’—”

“—ignoring you, there’s also ‘Metal Bend’, ‘Fan & Sword’, and then ‘Kya’. So… yeah, eight total songs that we want to record to put on the CD.”

Zuko’s quiet for a minute. “You know, eight songs really are manageable. You can record all of them here if you want.”

“Zuko, are you sure? That’s going to take a while, probably at least, like, two or three months,” Sokka mentions. _Deep inside he hopes Zuko is sure. He hopes he can make a steady schedule of sitting here, three inches from Zuko, on his couch, in his basement, eating his seal jerky_.

“Yeah,” Zuko says, scratching the back of his neck. “I’d be happy to help.”

Sokka smiles softly at Zuko, but then his eyes lower and he catches the time on Zuko’s laptop. “Shit!” he exclaims, immediately closing his own laptop and packing it away. “I’m going to be late for work.”

“Oh,” Zuko replies. “Let me give you a ride.”

“Oh Agni, Zuko, I owe you like, a billion favors,” Sokka moans, zipping up his backpack. “Jet gets on my ass if I’m even a minute late.”

“Huh,” Zuko chokes out. “Okay.”

Sokka stands up and looks at Zuko. “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Zuko says, rubbing his hands on his legs. “Yeah, yeah, I’m ready.” He gets up and Sokka finally moves towards the stairs, confidently navigating the house despite never having been inside of it before today.

Zuko follows and grabs his keys back from the kitchen counter, leading the way back to the car. Sokka clambers back in, scrambling to hoist himself up. Zuko starts the car and they’re off. 

Ten seconds in, Zuko abruptly pulls over to the side of the road.

“Wait, sorry,” Zuko says, eyes glaring at his wheel. “Where exactly do you work?”

Sokka laughs at the man beside him and gives him directions. Zuko snaps at him for laughing, but Zuko’s voice lacks bite and his shoulders are rapidly relaxing. Sokka indulges him, quieting down, but his smile remains stuck on his face.

They pull up outside the pizza place with two minutes to spare.

“Hey, thanks again,” Sokka says, fondly glancing over at the man. 

“Yeah, of course,” he replies. “Hey, do you need a ride back? To your place. After your shift, I mean.”

“Nah, it’s only like a fifteen-minute walk back to mine, so that’s what I usually do,” Sokka says, “but that’s really nice of you to offer, thanks.”

“Okay, cool,” Zuko blushes. “Um, hey Sokka?”

“Yeah?”

“Maybe you could come by the shop tomorrow?” he proposes, looking into Sokka’s eyes and gnawing on his lip. “We could talk more about like, the structure of the album. And we can plan the next steps for everyone.”

This moment reverberates with the feeling of being unhinged. Sokka is struck by it. He could choose to pursue this friendship, this _something_ , and meet Zuko at the tea shop, even though they could coordinate logistics from a few texts. Sokka could get invested. He could talk to Zuko about the actual meanings of the songs, get his help figuring out how to lace them together. Share the intimacies of the lyrics with the other man. Succumb to the golden desire pulling at his stomach.

But Sokka could also choose to hold back. Remain in his comfort zone. Let his emotions about every song, every lyric he wrote from his heart, simmer lonely in his mind. He could probably consult Katara on some of his words, even if she wouldn’t have insight into their composition. That could be enough.

Sokka has a choice in front of him; create beautiful art with Zuko while leaving his emotions raw for the man to see, or independently trudge along to create his art comfortably. 

The decision is easier to make than he expects.

“I would love to swing by! I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Sokka smiles before shutting the car door. _The smile drips down his face as he turns away from Zuko. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, he isn’t sure what he wants out of Zuko’s companionship. A friend? A fellow artist? Someone wise? Someone beautiful? Someone who could be something more?_

Zuko’s car doesn’t leave until after Sokka is safe in the building.

_He’s going to need a heart-to-heart with Katara ASAP_. 

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

For the next week, Sokka makes daily visits Zuko at the Jasmine Dragon. The visits last around an hour, and their conversation mainly focuses on the album’s song order.

"If there’s a song order that tells a story, then that’s the order we want,” Zuko says one day from behind the counter, peering over with his head slightly twisted to read Sokka’s notes, which are laid out before him on the countertop. “If the songs don’t audibly blend into each other, which, going off what you’ve said, seems to be true in this case, then it’s best to order them by lyrical content. If not that, then by the emotion behind each song.”

Sokka frowns. “I don’t know if that’s how we should be looking at these. The Gaang is four people; five, if you include me.”

“We’re including you,” Zuko says confidently. Sokka ignores him.

“I wrote all these songs, but most of them, I wrote with someone else in the group. The songs don’t even seem to tell a story altogether because the narrator changes. And if we order them by emotion, then we’ll get some shifting of perspectives that might feel awkward. ‘Mint’ is a love song that Aang helped write for Katara, but I think it’s different from the ‘untitled’ song that I wrote. Same base emotion, but very different lyrics and style.”

“That’s… actually a very fair point,” Zuko concedes, leaning back and meeting Sokka’s eyes. “So, you’re suggesting ordering them by band member?”

“Yeah, I guess I am,” Sokka nods, shuffling through his notes until he’s looking at the eight songs they’re planning to record. “I think we should save the ‘untitled’ song for last because that one needs the most work. The only other song that I wrote just by myself was ‘My Girlfriend, The Moon’, but it’s kind of bigger than just me. Aang took it over, too, as soon as we changed it from being a duet.”

“It was a duet?” Zuko asks, frowning.

“When I first wrote it, yeah,” Sokka admits. “I was meant to sing the other part of it with him. But stage fright got the best of me, and we changed it around a bit afterwards to fit just one voice. So, technically speaking, it’s one of my songs, but maybe at this point, we should lump it into one of Aang’s.”

Sokka takes a sip of his tea, and when he puts the mug back down, he sees that Zuko’s cheeks are reddened. “Ah,” Zuko says quietly. He clears his throat. “So, your girlfriend, why does she remind you of the moon?”

“Oh, no, that’s not actually—um, the girl I wrote the song about, well, she wasn’t actually my girlfriend. Technically speaking,” Sokka starts, then blushes. “Um. Well. There was this girl, and her name was Yue.”

He doesn’t continue, so Zuko frowns and sets down the mugs he was cleaning. Zuko grabs a stool from the back and brings it over to sit on the other side of the bar counter, right across from Sokka. Sokka looks up and sends him a quick smile.

“So. Yue was a bit older than me. We met when I was seventeen, and I was instantly smitten. She entertained me, I don’t know why she decided to, because I’ve always been a bit of a goof and she was…. well. Pretty damn perfect. Anyways. Her family set her up with this older gentleman, and they were engaged, but it wasn’t a union of love, or passion, or any emotion. It was just a commitment for her family’s sake.”

Zuko’s frown deepens. “That must have been hard on her.”

“It was. But I think I helped. Is that cocky of me to say?” he jokes, nudging Zuko’s elbow on the counter. “Anyway, we met up in secret a few nights each week during my senior year. I just felt… pulled to her, I don’t know. I thought about her all the time; I couldn’t help it.” Sokka pauses. “She passed away in a car crash, a few months after I met her. There was a full moon the night that she died. On the nights that we would hang out, she’d always mention how much she loved the moon. I guess… I think I processed her death better when I realized that, well, maybe the moon had her now. Which doesn’t make logical sense, but for some reason, my mind has clung to that thought for comfort ever since I first thought it.”

“Wow,” Zuko reacts, exhaling. After a few seconds pass, Zuko reaches out and covers Sokka’s hands with his own. “That’s rough, buddy.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Sokka grimaces, leaving his hands limp in Zuko’s.

Zuko’s quiet for a few more moments. His eyes are closed, and he looks as if he’s gathering the words together in his head. Finally, his eyes snap open, and Sokka sinks into the golden comfort that they offer.

“That must have been nice for her, developing such a close relationship to someone so special before her passing,” Zuko gently says, his thumbs making light motions over the back of Sokka’s hands. “How lucky is it that she experienced happiness before it was her time to go. I’m so sorry for your loss, Sokka, but I’m glad that you still have the moon to look at, to remember her by.”

There’s something about the way Zuko says it, the way he strings his words together, that makes Sokka think that he truly _gets it_. Not only Sokka’s grief, but the comfort he finds in the remnants of life she left for him. Sokka never feels heartbroken when he looks up at the moon; instead, it’s a warm reminder that she existed, that what they built together was real, no matter how brief it was.

“I still talk to her sometimes,” Sokka admits, voice barely a murmur. He hasn’t told anyone else this, and he wouldn’t say that Zuko’s eyes are _compelling_ , but… Sokka feels safe. “During full moons mostly.”

“That’s nice,” Zuko replies with a soft smile. “I’m sure she likes that.”

Sokka gently grins back and nods. 

“Zuko!” Iroh’s desperate yell from the back tears their eyes away from each other. “The bean curd puffs! They’re burning!”

Zuko removes his hand from Sokka’s. “I’m coming!” he yells back to his uncle. He gives a half-hearted apology to Sokka as he leaves, but Sokka just brushes him off with an easy shrug.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

By the end of the week, Sokka and Zuko have an album structure and a recording plan. The next step in their plan involves getting The Gaang together in Zuko’s basement and recording the first song on the to-be album. Sokka and Zuko would then take a week to edit down the recording into a finalized file, and they would start the process over again next weekend with the second song. Until, at the end of two months, they had their eight songs. The only thing left for them to do before the plan went in motion was for Sokka to tell The Gaang. 

"Let me get this straight, Snoozles,” Toph leered. “You want us, your friends, who you claim to love, to submit ourselves to some rando’s basement studio because we somehow can’t do this alone?”

“How much is he charging?” Suki asks. “There’s got to be some sort of catch with that deal. Is he having you work on some of his songs, in exchange?”

“Why should we trust this guy?” Katara questions. “He’s been rude to me before, he might be rude to me again.”

Sokka slaps a hand on his forehead and sighs. 

“What’s the song order?” Aang asks, his voice piping up from the floor. “If we’re recording these in the order that they’ll be on the album… then what order are they in?”

“Great question, Aang,” Sokka says, gesturing to his sister’s fiancé. “We’re starting with ‘Metal Bend.’”

“Oh, fuck yes!” Toph blurts out. “My song first! These CDs will be flying off the shelves like hotcakes.”

“That’s the dream,” Sokka agrees, grinning at the younger girl. “’Fan & Sword’ is up after ‘Metal Bend’, then we’ll have ‘My Girlfriend, The Moon’, then ‘Air Nomad’ and ‘Sweat’ and ‘Mint’, then ‘Kya’, and then we’ll wrap up with ‘untitled’. Which will hopefully have a better name by the time we get to it.”

“How’d you decide which songs would go where?” Suki asks.

“I had help from Zuko,” Sokka replies, hand coming up to scratch at the back of his neck. “They mostly flow from person to person within The Gaang, with ‘My Girlfriend, The Moon’ the main exception. But we have Toph’s favorite, then yours, which is about our friendship, so I figured if we were moving ‘My Girlfriend, The Moon’ anywhere, it should be after that. Because that song is also kind of about friendship.” Katara dramatically coughs but Sokka easily ignores her. “Then we have Aang’s favorite, then the songs that he helped to write for Katara, then the song Katara helped me with about our mom, and then we have mine. Zuko and I thought it made the most sense to line them up in that way. That way our lyrics and style don’t seem so jumbled.”

“Sounding ‘jumbled’ is half our allure, Sokka,” Suki drawls. Nonetheless, she has a smile on her face. “But I see your point. I think the structure sounds good. I’m a little bit nervous of having Toph’s drumming be the dominant feature of our first song—”

“—Watch what you say, Suki—” Toph sneers.

“—But I guess this order feels the most like us. Which I appreciate,” Suki finishes.

“Thank you, Suki. Anyone else have anything to say before we solidify this?” Sokka asks.

There is silence for only the briefest of moments. 

“The order’s fine, Sokka, really, but can we really trust this guy with music? Everything we’ve done so far, we’ve done as just the five of us. I’m not sure we need some random guy influencing us now,” Katara frowns.

Sokka looks at his sister and clears his throat. “Zuko’s a bit closed off, and yes, he snapped at you that one time, but somehow, I know I can trust him. I feel it in my gut. He’s smart, he’s hilarious in the strangest of ways, and he listens to my input. He has had so much experience working in the music field, and knows what works best on paper, but whenever I’ve challenged that to fit something better for our group, he has heard me out. He wanted the structure to be completely by mood, or by sound; but the lyrics wouldn’t flow as nicely, and when I told him why, he helped me figure out this order so that it would fit us as a band the best without sacrificing our sound or flow. We can trust him. I promise.”

“Well, if Sokka vouches for him, then I trust him,” Aang chips in, nudging Katara beside him. “After all, what’s the worst that can happen? We end up with some badly mixed final songs?”

“Fine,” Katara huffs. “Okay, I’m in.”

“Me, too,” Suki joins in. “Even if he ends up charging us an insane amount for using up his equipment and time.”

“I don’t think he’s charging us,” Sokka frowns. Zuko hadn’t brought payment up, but maybe it was naïve of Sokka to conclude the help was therefore just a friendly favor.

“Even if it’s thousands, I’m sure Twinkle Toes can pay up,” Toph chimes in. Aang playfully slaps her shoulder. “What, I’m not wrong!” Toph insists. Aang laughs. “He’s got all that monk money,” she mutters. “From being the last guy in his big monk family.”

“All right, all right, if we have to pay, I’ve got it,” Aang says easily. “Thank you dearly for volunteering me, Toph.”

“My pleasure,” she replies.

“All right! Now that we’ve all agreed, let’s talk plans. Are you all free this Saturday?”

They all are, and while the rest of The Gaang starts joking about recording Appa’s barks to include somewhere in the album, Sokka shoots Zuko a text.

**Sokka [8:57PM]:** this saturday!! you free?

**Sokka [8:57PM]:** the gaang is super excited to record :’)))))))))

**Zuko [9:02PM]:** I am actually expensive this Saturday but for you I will be free

**Sokka [9:03PM]:** ….was that…. a joke?????

**Zuko [9:05PM]:** Depends. Did you laugh?

**Sokka [9:06PM]:** well wouldnt you like to know

**Zuko [9:08PM]:** I would. That’s why I asked.

**Sokka [9:09PM]:** are u forreal?? forreal.

**Sokka [9:11PM]:** yeah it was funny

**Sokka [9:11PM]:** now u better be free on saturday bc we are ready 2 come over

**Zuko [9:15PM]:** Sounds good.

**Sokka [9:16PM]:** :’)))))) thank u

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

Suki insists on picking them all up. Sokka’s worried about Zuko feeling ambushed with them all arriving at once, but Katara tells him to shut up and accept the ride, so he does. Sokka sits in the front with Suki, much to Toph’s irritation. 

“Why do you even need to sit in the front? It’s not like you can see,” Sokka snaps.

Toph immediately starts yelling at him, throwing a reeking sock forward from the backseat. Aang quickly cuts in, grabbing Toph’s hands so she can’t grab more ammo. Sokka opens his mouth to gloat, but then Aang cuts him off with a quick kick to the back of his seat.

“Hey, I know Sokka’s annoying—” Suki starts.

“Hey!” Sokka interjects.

“—but this is my car, so everyone needs to calm their tits,” Suki finishes, with a sharp glare directed at Aang. Aang gulps. Sokka smirks, until Suki reaches over to hit him in the stomach. The sound that comes out of his mouth is mangled and atrocious.

“Serves you right,” Toph mutters under her breath. Suki hums in agreement. 

The rest of the car ride is tame. Sokka gives Suki the directions to Zuko’s house, and Aang braids Katara’s hair. Toph sulks.

“And… this is it. The one on the corner,” Sokka gestures, finally spotting Zuko’s house. Suki parks on the side of the road. Sokka walks around the car to let Toph grab onto his arm, and then they all walk up to the front door.

Sokka knocks twice.

“Welcome!” a booming voice greets them. Sokka watches as Iroh opens the door and beams down ( _up? the man_ is _rather short_ ) at them. “Please, come in. Zuko’s awaiting you all in the kitchen.”

“Thanks, Iroh,” Sokka smiles, stepping inside. “Iroh, these are my friends, Toph, Suki, and Aang, and this is my sister, Katara. Guys, this is Iroh, Zuko’s uncle.”

“Nice to meet you,” Aang says politely, as everyone else waves. 

Sokka finds it easy to breeze past the ensuing small talk with Iroh. He heads into the kitchen with Toph still latched onto his arm. Zuko is stretching up to reach into a cabinet, allowing a sliver of skin on his belly to be exposed from under his black hoodie. Sokka’s mouth fills with saliva.

“Sifu Hotman!” Toph greets, moving her hands from Sokka’s arm to the island counter that Sokka has assembled them around. Zuko pokes his head out from the cabinet, mouth full of _something_ , and he waves at Toph. Sokka urgently shakes his head at him. “Say something back,” Sokka silently mouths at the man. Zuko tilts his head in confusion.

“Hey! Hello. Did you hear me, Sifu Hotman?” Toph asks, her voice hardened.

Understanding finally graces Zuko’s features, and it’s comical how the blood drains from his face and his eyes widen. “Erm, yes. Hey there, Toph.”

“Whatcha eating there?” Sokka asks, diffusing most of the tension.

“Oh, um,” Zuko looks down in his hands, “just some granola? You can have some, if you want.”

Sokka’s already by his side, grabbing a few chunks out of Zuko’s palm before he finishes talking. When Sokka swallows the snack, he looks up to see Zuko’s amused face.

“You’re welcome,” Zuko says, raising an eyebrow.

“I sure am,” Sokka replies, widening his eyes to make Zuko laugh as he steals a few more bites from his hand.

“Stop flirting,” Toph moans. Sokka chokes on the granola. “Where are the drums?”

Sokka sees Zuko redden, but he’s composed skillfully quick. “They’re in the basement. Here, let me lead the way.”

Toph reaches out for Sokka’s arm again, and he leads her behind Zuko, down the stairs.

“Suki! Katara! Aang! We’re downstairs, come on!” Toph calls back to the rest of the group.

Soon, everyone is assembled around the large couch on the basement, listening to Sokka talk in front of them. Zuko hangs around in the corner.

“All right, gang, listen up. We’re going to record the whole song once through. No need to be perfect; the purpose of the first recording is to nail the pacing of the song. Zuko will compress the recording into an audio file that we can play out of these headphones,” Sokka holds up the professional-grade headphones Zuko had suggested they use, “for when you will record individually. That way all your individual audio clips will be synched up to the same pacing, even though you won’t be all playing together.”

“This actually sounds like a good idea,” Katara says, nodding her head, having the audacity to appear surprised.

“Wow, thanks,” Sokka deadpans. 

Katara shrugs. Suki stifles her laughter.

“Are we going to get to playing?” Toph asks, scratching her face. “I’m ready.”

Zuko steps in beside Sokka. “I’ve gathered all your instruments here,” he says, gesturing behind him. “Drums, bass, guitar, violin.”

Suki stands up and examines the instruments. After a few moments, she whistles. “Damn, I knew Sokka said that you’d have the instruments, but this violin… it’s exquisite.”

“How do the drums look?” Toph asks, scrunching up her face.

“Also exquisite,” Suki says in awe. She looks up at Zuko. “Thank you for letting us use your time, space, and equipment.”

Zuko scratches the back of his neck. “Yeah, no problem. As long as it helps you guys out.”

Sokka nudges Zuko and murmurs a thanks as the rest of The Gaang gets up and goes towards their instruments. They warm up, and are soon waiting for a cue from Zuko, who is setting up the recording software on his laptop.

Zuko’s biting his lip in concentration. _Sokka can see a peek of tongue from inside his mouth. It’s pink, it’s glistening, it’s wildly enrapturing._ Zuko finally clears his face and sits back, satisfied with whatever is showing up on his computer.

“All right, on my count down, start playing. Remember, it’s the whole song through, at the pace you want the finalized version to go at. Three, two, one, start!” Zuko calls out.

Toph immediately puts the petal to the metal, slinging her new drumsticks across the drums and exerting her power over the cymbals. Katara and Aang are also playing, though they’re barely audible over Toph. Sokka looks over to Suki, her violin patient in her hand. She won’t bring it up to play for another two minutes. She sticks her tongue out at Sokka and wiggles her eyebrows outlandishly. Sokka bites back his laughter but gives her a thumbs up. 

Soon, Aang starts singing the few lyrics in ‘Metal Bend’. (If singing is even the right word for it. Aang is practically screaming, just to be heard over Toph.)

_Daddy’s little girl locked away so nice_

_Pretty piece of art for her father’s eye_

_Grew into a master of her own device_

_Daddy threw her in jail so that he could deny_

_And live in La-La land where he could play pretend_

_Like she can’t metal bend, never metal bend_

_The curse of the blind is to see all creation_

_Little girl tore daddy’s hopes to shreds_

_She decided on power, family abdication_

_Left his home broken and cut out all the threads_

_Of the La-La land where daddy played pretend_

_Like she can’t metal bend, never metal bend_

Aang throws in a few well-timed screams for the hell of it, and Toph is beaming from behind her drums. They finish with one last bang on the cymbals, one last cut from Suki’s violin, and Sokka immediately stands up and starts clapping. 

“Bravo, bravo,” he gushes as they start putting down their equipment. “Perfect mayhem from you all today. Nothing better to start off with.”

Toph leans back on her stool with a smug grin on her face. “It did sound pretty good, right?”

Katara rubs her ears. “I don’t think it sounded like anything,” she groans. “My hearing is blasted.”

“What did you say?” Suki asks, rubbing her ear on her elbow. “I can’t hear you.”

“What are you saying?” Katara asks, looking at Suki from the corner of her eyes.

Zuko takes off his headphones and looks entertained as he tugs on Sokka’s sleeve. 

“What’s up?” Sokka asks quietly, moving toward Zuko until there’s only a centimeter of space between them. “Is the file compressed?”

"Yeah,” he replies, gold eyes flickering up to meet Sokka’s blue. “It’s ready to go whenever anyone is ready to play.”

Sokka nods and considers kissing Zuko’s forehead. _It’s an urge. He ignores it_. He clears his throat and takes a step back, finally looking back over at his friends. “All right, guys! Who’s first on the solo recording?”

Toph volunteers. She nails it in one take, and after she’s done, she and her shit-eating grin meander over to the couch where the rest of them are sitting. She taps Katara with her foot, and Katara sighs before getting up.

“Your turn, Sugar Queen,” Toph sneers, plopping herself down in Katara’s recently vacated seat.

Katara uses up ten takes. Aang, four. Suki nails the small violin part of the song in only two takes. 

At the end of their recordings, it’s been two hours and Sokka is amped up. He leans into Zuko’s personal space, looking over the program pulled up on Zuko’s computer.

“So,” he breathes, entirely too close to Zuko’s scarred cheek. Zuko shivers beside him. “How long do you think it’ll take to tie all these together?”

“No offense,” Toph says, head tilted, “but do we have to be here when you guys pull the audio together? I’d much rather go home and nap and just listen to the final product when you finish it.”

Sokka snaps his head up from Zuko’s computer and looks at his friends. Katara’s got her head in Aang’s lap, eyes closed, and Suki is yawning.

“Oh,” Sokka says, standing up straight. “Yeah, you guys should go home. I’ll send you the audio when we finish it.”

“Do you want me to come back and give you a ride home after you guys are done?” Suki asks, stretching.

Sokka hears shuffling beside him and finds Zuko standing up, placing a hand on Sokka’s arm. “I don’t mind giving you a ride back home, if that’s what you want,” he says.

Sokka smiles at him and nods. “Yeah, that would be good with me.”

Suki coughs and Sokka turns back to face her. She’s smirking, about to say something, before Katara cuts her off. “Come on, let’s go. Appa’s got to be ready for a walk right about now.”

“All right. Toph, grab onto me,” Suki says, taking her keys out of her pocket. “Good luck with the audio and Flameo Hotman, Sokka.”

“It’s _Sifu_ Hotman,” Toph corrects as she latches onto Suki.

They’re all laughing as they head upstairs, leaving Sokka and Zuko in the basement. Sokka rubs his temples.

“I’m really sorry about them, I don’t know—”

“It’s okay, Sokka,” Zuko comforts, an upwards twitch of his mouth relaxing him. “I don’t mind the nicknames, not really.”

“If it makes you feel any better, Toph’s been calling me Snoozles for years,” Sokka confesses. The two of them sit back down on the couch, and Zuko pulls his computer onto his lap. “At least your nickname’s kind of a compliment, you know? Hotman. Like you’re attractive. Hot.”

Zuko blushes faintly and pulls his laptop closer to his chest. “You think?”

“Oh, yeah,” Sokka says, speaking fast so that he doesn’t have to think about what he’s saying. “You’ve got this whole look going on, you know? Long silky dark hair, golden eyes, edgy scar… it’s pretty hot.”

“What do you mean, I’ve got this whole look going on? Look at you!” Zuko exclaims. “Wolf tail, sapphire eyes, funny jokes. Great smile. You… You look handsome.”

“Ugh, you sound like my sister,” Sokka bemoans, trying his best not to stitch Zuko’s words onto every fiber of his brain, never to be forgotten. “’Oh, Sokka, you look so handsome! Smile for the camera, we’re sending this one to Gran Gran!’” he says, imitating his younger sister.

“No, no, that’s—no—like, that’s not how I meant it,” Zuko stutters. “What I meant to say is that you’re attractive.” Zuko pauses. His eyes widen. 

Sokka saves him from the over-analysis that Sokka knows he’s prone to. “Now if only Toph could notice that and change my name to ‘Sexy Snoozles’ or something else, accordingly. A man can dream.”

Zuko reddens and focuses on the computer in his lap. “Right. That’s a very reasonable goal to set, having a blind woman change your nickname to indicate your physical attractiveness. Anyways, weren’t we about to edit some audio together?”

“Is that what we were going to do?” Sokka playfully asks. “Because I could’ve sworn we were about to have a snack break.”

“Ah,” says Zuko, leaning back on the sofa and closing his eyes. “You, Sokka, are truly an intelligent man. Yes, I believe that you were about to go grab us some fire flakes to share,” he says, lifting open his good eye to look at Sokka.

Sokka laughs. “Where are they?”

"Third shelf to the left of the fridge,” Zuko says, closing his eye again. He looks restful and content against the dark couch fabric.

It’s only after the boys are halfway through editing the audio, bellies full of snacks, that Sokka realizes Toph decided on Zuko’s nickname because of his temperature, not his physical attractiveness _. Linking the ‘Sifu Hotman’ nickname to Zuko’s beauty was something Sokka’s mind had done on its own. Not that it mattered. In the grand scheme of things._ Zuko hadn’t seemed to make that connection yet, or at least, he hadn’t brought it up, so Sokka filed it away in an empty corner of his brain as he scooted a bit closer to Zuko’s side. 

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

“Are you busy tomorrow?” Zuko asks as they pull up in front of Sokka’s house.

“I’ve got work at night, but I’m free during the day,” Sokka responds.

“Would you like to come over to the tea shop so we can start working on the next song?”

“Nah, I actually think we should scrap the whole project,” Sokka deadpans.

Zuko grips the steering wheel tighter before glancing over at Sokka’s bemused face. He then instantly visibly deflates. 

“Ha ha, aren’t you _funny_ ,” he murmurs. “Well, if you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

“Not likely that I will change my mind, but I appreciate the sentiment,” Sokka utters with fake seriousness. His eyebrows are so scrunched up above his eyes that they feel heavy. 

Zuko huffs with amusement. It’s not a full-blown laugh, but Sokka knows those are hard to come by from him. Just the huff is enough to send a swell of pride through Sokka’s chest.

"Noted,” Zuko says with a click of his tongue. “I’ll be pining in the tea shop, in case you _do_ decide to swing by. Now get out of my car.”

Sokka rolls his eyes. “Fine.”

Goodbyes with Zuko are always awkward and fumbling. Especially now, in his car. Sokka twists in his seat so that his chest faces Zuko, which is already a vaguely physically uncomfortable position. The gear switch is in between them, and Zuko is still buckled in, meaning his movement is even more awkward and limited and uncomfortable than Sokka’s. Sokka’s urge to touch Zuko overpowers every rational thought, though. He clamors over the gear shift and shoves his body towards Zuko, encapsulating him in a hug. Zuko makes a muffled sound before swinging his arms around Sokka and reciprocating to the best of his ability. The gear shift is digging into Sokka’s groin, and he can barely breathe with his face against Zuko’s hoodie, but he keeps his arms locked around him for as long as he can bear. When he finally pulls back, he moves just a few inches at first, shooting Zuko a close smile. Zuko lets out another amused huff, and Sokka watches as sprouts of red begin to blossom on Zuko’s cheeks.

Sokka leans back all the way. Zuko bites his lip and looks down, the red color still staining his face.

“See you later, Zuko,” Sokka says softly, before opening up the car door and heading outside.

Zuko waits in his car until Sokka unlocks the front door. Appa immediately jumps up to greet Sokka, and Sokka teeters over slightly but still manages to wave a goodbye to Zuko before the man drives away.

“Katara! Aang! I’m home,” Sokka calls out, crossing over the threshold to their house.

“Hmph—oh, hey, Sokka!” Aang starts, fumbling up and off the couch. Katara quickly rolls up from the space Aang vacated. Her hair is a mess and her cheeks are rosy and Sokka immediately wants to burn his eyes even though the two of them are ( _thankfully_ ) fully clothed.

“You two have a bedroom literally _right there_!!” Sokka cries out, gesturing at their door.

Aang at least looks embarrassed, but Katara simply pats her hair down and scoffs at Sokka. “Relax,” she says, “we weren’t doing anything gross.”

“The fact that you were doing anything at all _is_ gross, Katara,” Sokka groans. “You’re my little sister! Agni, guys, seriously.”

“Don’t pretend like you weren’t out there doing something similar with _Zuko_ ,” Katara snarls, hurling out Zuko’s name like an insult. She stands up and comes near Sokka.

“Katara—what—how could you—” Sokka splutters, feeling his face heat up. _Thank Agni his skin won’t show it_. “Me and Zuko _aren’t like that_! What’s wrong with you?!”

“I’m going to take Appa on a walk,” Aang interjects, contorting his body to squeeze between the arguing siblings. They both ignore him.

“What’s wrong with me? Well, I don’t know Sokka, what’s wrong with you?” Katara yells. “How can you get mad at me for making out with _my_ _fiancé_ in _my own damn home_?”

Sokka slaps a hand to his forehead. “I’m not even that mad, Katara, it’s just gross! I don’t want to see it!”

“This is my _home_ , Sokka—”

“—yeah, well it’s mine, too—”

“—If you really think it’s that gross, then why don’t you just move out!”

Katara’s voice rings out in the air, which seems to stiffen around her words. Sokka inhales sharply, feeling the weight of what she’s said hit his body like a lead pipe.

“If that’s how you really feel,” he mutters, picking up Momo from the living room carpet and then rapidly moving towards his own bedroom.

Katara groans. “Wait, Sokka, that’s not what I meant—”

Sokka slams his door shut so that he doesn’t have to listen anymore.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

He hears a knock on his door an hour later.

“Hey, it’s me,” Katara’s muffled voice says from the other side. “Listen… I brought you some seal jerky.”

Sokka moves Momo off his lap and gets up. He opens the door and finds Katara, now in her pajamas, holding a new bag of jerky in her hands. He looks back up at her face and she pushes the jerky out to him, a peace offering. He glares at her for ten seconds before taking it.

“Come on in,” he sighs, turning around and ripping open the bag. He sits down on the edge of his bed, Momo immediately coming back onto his lap, and Katara sits down on his desk chair.

Katara gnaws on her lip, looking at Sokka eat. He’s consuming entirely too much seal jerky in an entirely too quick pace. After a few moments, she looks down at her lap. 

“You know,” she says quietly, “I didn’t mean what I said. I love having you live with us, Sokka. I’m so sorry if what I said hurt your feelings.”

Sokka swallows. “Things escalated quick, it’s okay,” he says.

Katara frowns and looks up at him. “It’s not okay, it shouldn’t _be_ okay. I know why you live with us, I’m very grateful for it and for you, and I know that Aang doesn’t mind at all. I think he really loves having a guy friend around for the occasional manly shenanigans.”

Sokka laughs at that. While he and Aang have very key differences ( _the most important being that the other man is a vegetarian, for Agni’s sake_ ), they’re supportive of each other. Whether that be grilling together ( _burgers for Sokka, squash for Aang_ ), going out to bars together ( _and playing rock-paper-scissors to see which loser had to call Katara and ask for a ride when they inevitably ended up drinking too much_ ), or writing lyrics together for The Gaang ( _Sokka is always nervous about coming off as ‘too sensitive’ in his lyrics, but Aang always encourages him to be his most authentic self_ ). 

“I love being here, I really do,” Sokka says softly. “I just wish I would be more independent by now. Not have to work delivering pizzas, you know.”

“You’re more independent than you think,” Katara responds, reaching out her fist to lightly knock against Sokka’s shoulder. “And we both know why you started that job.”

Their eyes meet and their mutual understanding floods Sokka’s senses.

Sokka first started delivering pizzas when he was sixteen. Their dad, Hakoda, had started a job on a boat a few years earlier, and Sokka and Katara moved into their Gran Gran’s house. Gran Gran was lovely, intelligent, and a strong role model, but the added financial burden of two children was a lot, even with Hakoda sending the bulk of his paychecks their way. Sokka had started his job hoping to have it only through high school. He ended up keeping it during his first and only year at college, needing something to pay for his textbooks and his ramen dinners. He applied to computer science internships, got into a few, and was excited at the prospect of taking them until he realized they were all unpaid. 

He kept working at the pizza place that summer after school, trying his best to scramble together enough to justify continuing his education. It hadn’t worked out. Now, the pizza gig is the best he could hope for, having worked there long enough to receive several pay raises. The side money from The Gaang helped a bit, and there was no way that Aang charged Sokka his fair share of the rent. Sokka had done the math and _knew_ he should be paying more each month, but the one time he brought it up with Aang, the younger man insisted that all was fair, and that he never wanted the topic to come up ever again.

So, Sokka is in a place he doesn’t exactly want to be, but it’s not bad. It just is what it is. At least he’s got his sister, happy as ever, only a hallway away.

“Thanks,” Sokka murmurs, grimacing slightly. “I… Just… Let me know if it actually gets to be an issue. If you guys want the house to yourselves.”

Katara chuckles. “I doubt that will happen anytime soon, but okay. I promise I’ll let you know.”

Sokka nods his head and Katara looks at him contently for a few moments before a wicked grin splits her face.

“So,” she starts innocently, “do you want to talk about Zuko?”

Sokka groans and flops back onto his bed. “Nothing is happening between me and Zuko. Okay?”

Katara tilts her head. “Are you sure? Because you two looked awfully chummy today.”

Sokka doesn’t respond. Instead, after a few moments, he closes his eyes and wills his little sister away. She doesn’t go.

“You know you can talk to me about anything, right?” she pipes up. “I’m always here for you.”

Sokka opens his eyes again and looks at her. “Thanks,” he says very quietly. He sighs and then pulls himself back up to a sitting position. Katara’s face is relaxed and patient.

He doesn’t know where to begin. 

“Zuko confuses me.” He figures that’s a good place to start. 

Katara nods her head, her lips shut.

"Sometimes I lie in bed and try to sleep but I keep on thinking of the rasp in his voice and the light in his eyes,” he whispers, closing his eyes. “I don’t know what to do with this. I don’t know why I’m thinking this way. I don’t even know where to begin to deal with it all.”

“It’s okay not to know,” Katara says gently. “He seems like he cares about you too, Sokka.”

Sokka lets out a dull laugh. “Yeah, well, he’s a good guy, Katara.”

He’s still not looking at her, but he can practically _hear_ Katara roll her eyes. She shuffles around, and Sokka feels his mattress sink with her weight beside him.

“What’s got you so confused about feeling this way?” she asks, brushing his hair out of his face.

He scowls. “I don’t know, Katara, maybe it’s because I am a dude and Zuko is a dude and I’ve never even _entertained_ the possibility of that sort of thing before he had the audacity to appear in my life.”

“Oh, Sokka,” she murmurs, “you know that’s okay, right? It’s not wrong. If you’re going to beat yourself up over something, let it be how you forget to brush your teeth most mornings. Let it be how you deep you get into some conspiracy theories.”

“Some of them make great points! Seriously, Avril Lavigne _does not look the same_.”

“Fine! Just promise me to not let yourself hurt over how you feel about a boy. A crush is innocent and hopeful. There’s no shame in a crush.”

“I never said I had a crush!”

“Oh, right,” Katara says, voice uncharacteristically deep as she tries to hold in her laughter. “You just said that you can’t fall asleep because you’re thinking about his husky voice and luminescent eyes. My bad. I shouldn’t have assumed.”

Sokka glares at his sister. “Are you trying to help or what?”

She giggles. “I’m sorry. But Sokka, it’s okay! It really is. If you’re gay, or bisexual, or just not one hundred percent heterosexual, it’s okay. I will still love you no matter what, Aang will love you no matter what, the whole Gaang will, and Haru, and dad, and if you’re lucky, maybe even Zuko will love—”

“Okay, okay!” Sokka shouts, flinging his hands up. “Enough with the teasing. You’ve done your job, I feel less bad now.”

Katara ruffles his hair that she so recently fixed up, and he sticks his tongue out at her. “Happy to help,” she smiles. “I’m here for you always, you know that.”

“I do,” Sokka murmurs, unenthusiastically smiling back at her.

She pats the bed and then gets up, heading to the door. “Good. Have a nice rest of your night, Sokka. I’ll leave you to stress about Zuko’s cute face,” she teases, closing the door before Sokka can even open his mouth for a retort.

Sokka huffs and twists his face to look at Momo. “Will you still love me if I’m not straight?” Sokka asks the cat. Momo starts purring. Sokka smiles at the cat and pets his head.

“Well, if you say so,” he tells Momo. “If you’re good with it, then I guess I can be good with it, too.”

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

Sokka can tell the exact instant that Zuko notices him through the shop window. His eyes light up, and his hand quickly flings up to wave a hello at Sokka. It looks like he’s hit his hand against his face slightly in the panic of getting it up. Sokka muffles a laugh and walks through the door.

"I thought I’d save you from your pining,” Sokka says as soon as he’s close enough to the other man.

“Ah. How kind of you,” he deadpans. The only feature betraying Zuko’s apathy are his twinkling eyes. Sokka smiles at him before seating himself at the empty bar.

“Can I get you anything?” Zuko asks, putting a few clean glasses away.

“You know what, sure! Surprise me.”

Zuko nods and starts preparing something behind the counter. Sokka pulls out his notebook from his backpack and flips open to his notes on ‘Fan & Sword’.

After a few minutes, Zuko places a cup in front of Sokka, and leans forward, tilting his head, to get a better look at Sokka’s notebook. “Tell me about this one.”

“Okay,” Sokka starts, moving his notebook slightly so that Zuko could see it better. “This one I wrote with Suki, about our relationship. I met Suki when I was helping The Gaang busk in this park, and Suki was there with the Kyoshi Warriors, busking as well. I sauntered over there, intending to ask them to move a bit so that our music wouldn’t be clashing with theirs, but then Suki and I just hit it off.”

“Really,” Zuko murmurs, biting down on his lip.

“Yeah! Suki’s great,” he beams. Zuko lifts his elbows from the bar and leans back a bit. “Anyway, it didn’t take long before we recruited her to play violin with us. Somewhere in the midst of it all, we wrote this together. About us. It’s called ‘Fan & Sword’ because she’s got a tattoo of a fan on the back of her neck, and I’ve got a sword along my left thigh.”

“You have a tattoo?” Zuko asks.

“Yeah, I’ve got a few,” he says. “Mostly tribal designs. But I couldn’t resist the sword. I’ve got a family friend, Bato, who’s a tattoo artist, and he sketched the sword out one day a few years ago. I just knew I had to get it.”

Zuko looks at Sokka in a way Sokka can’t entirely comprehend. “Could I…. could I see it?”

Sokka glances down at his legs. He’s wearing skinny jeans, so he’d have to pull them off for Zuko to see. The thought makes him blush. _He imagines heading into the back room, letting Zuko unzip his pants slowly, moving the fabric down gracefully. Zuko kneeling down to get a better look at his tattoo. Zuko being face to face with Sokka’s crotch._

Sokka feels the heat on his cheeks, and he scooches around on his barstool to better conceal a, well, _growing_ problem. “Next time I swing by I’ll wear shorts,” Sokka promises. “Then you can see it.”

“I can’t wait,” the golden-eyed man replies pleasantly. 

Sokka takes a sip of his tea ( _jasmine, and delicious_ ), and gestures to the notebook. “So? Any notes you want to make about the lyrics?”

Zuko looks them over. He scratches his head. He frowns. Sokka gets nervous.

“What are you thinking?” he asks cautiously.

Zuko frowns deeper. “Honestly?” he starts. “I like them, but the stanzas need to be rearranged.”

“Why?” Sokka asks, feeling a tad defensive. “They rhyme.”

“They rhyme, but they don’t make that much sense,” Zuko counters. “Listen to this: _‘Why is your nose in the middle of your face?/Because it’s the scent-er!/I promise to be your biggest solution/If you promise to be my inventor!’_ I don’t get it. Why are there puns? The transition from puns to whatever the next two lines are is… well, confusing.”

Sokka groans. “There are puns because that’s how Suki and I became friends! We joked around a lot. The ones in the song are some of our favorites. The ‘inventor’ line is in there because we couldn’t figure out another word that rhymes with ‘scent-er’, okay?”

“Okay,” Zuko says calmly, nodding his head and looking suddenly resolute. “Let’s make a plan. Here’s what we’re going to do.”

Over the next hour, they reorganize the lyrics. Zuko helps Sokka get rid of certain stanzas, as well as create differences in each of the choruses to give the song some variety. They decide to strip the song down to just the puns (which they think would work best if spoken, not sung), and three sung choruses, each different from the rest. 

“Read it over to me,” Zuko sighs after they think they’ve finished the revisions. “Let’s hear it.”

Sokka looks over at Zuko. He’s resting his head against the bar counter, leaning awkwardly against it. His good eye is barely open. There’s no one else in the tea shop but them, and they’re both so relaxed. 

Sokka smiles before reading what they’ve edited.

_[spoken] Sword:_

_Why is your nose in the middle of your face?_

_Because it’s the scent-er!_

_Fan:_

_My obese parrot died yesterday._

_Now I’ve got a weight off my shoulder!_

_[sung] Sword & Fan make me a promising man_

_Tell me to rob you a bank & it’ll be our plan_

_Fan & Sword your smile’s got me lured_

_Please examine my lips and declare me cured_

_[spoken] Fan:_

_Did you hear about the shoe factory fire?_

_It was real sad, 100 soles were lost!_

_Sword:_

_Why is a room full of married people always empty?_

_Because there’s not a single person in it!_

_[sung] Sword & Fan make me a listening man_

_Tell me to read off your mind and I’ll show you I can_

_Fan & Sword your laughter’s got me lured_

_I’ll remember the punchlines but I’ll never get bored_

_[spoken] Sword:_

_What’s red and shaped like a bucket?_

_A blue bucket painted red!_

_Fan:_

_I was sitting in traffic the other day._

_That’s probably why I got run over!_

_[sung] Sword & Fan I’m a better man_

_You’re the best of the best, I’m your #1 stan_

_Fan & Sword I’m so glad I was lured_

_A best friend for my life, I can rest reassured_

“It’s a bit livelier than I’m used to,” Zuko says after Sokka finishes reading out the lyrics. “And we’re going to need Suki or Toph or Katara to read out the Fan jokes, so that people can better understand it’s a song with two perspectives. Aang should deliver the Sword jokes.”

“Suki would probably love to do that. And I’ll have to make sure Aang can deliver these jokes perfectly,” Sokka frowns. “Sometimes I worry about him and his ability to make people laugh. Would Suki have been as charmed if it was Aang who first went up to her and started joking around? I don’t know.”

Zuko scoffs, stretching out and finally standing up straight again. “Right, you work on that. Otherwise, I think this one is ready to go. It’s different from what you usually write,” he comments.

“Aren’t you observant,” Sokka teases. He revels in the slightest playful eye roll Zuko does. 

“I’m so observant that one of my eyes had to be burned blind,” Zuko murmurs under his breath. “Otherwise, I’d just be out here, noticing everything.”

Sokka gawks as Zuko blinks rapidly.

“Was that… was that a joke?” Sokka asks, somewhat timidly.

“I— maybe— I— look,” Zuko stutters, eyes wide.

Sokka bursts out laughing and slaps the countertop with glee. “Oh Agni, that is fucking _funny_ , Zuko! Who knew you had it in you?”

Zuko juts out his chin and looks like he’s holding back a smile, which somehow makes Sokka laugh a bit harder. Finally, the trace of seriousness vanishes from Zuko’s face, and he chuckles lightly along.

_And maybe Zuko’s joke wasn’t really all that funny. And maybe Sokka craved Zuko’s relaxed demeanor. And maybe the easiest way to get it was to laugh a bit too hard at his joke attempt. And what about it?_

After talking about ‘Fan & Sword’ a bit more, Zuko asks, “What did your friends think about the final mixing for ‘Metal Bend’?”

“Oh, they loved it,” Sokka smiles. “Absolutely loved it. It sounds so much better off of your equipment.”

“Good,” Zuko replies. “I know you were doing the best you could with your stuff—”

“Don’t worry about me!” Sokka interjects. “Zip it, seriously. This version of ‘Metal Bend’ is actually album-worthy.”

Zuko hums. A comfortable silence overcomes them both. Sokka flips through his notebook and then tries to find a clock. He fails.

“What time is it?” he asks Zuko.

Zuko looks down at his wrist, _because of course he’s the kind of guy that wears a watch_. “Three thirty.”

“I’ve got another hour to kill, want to get started on ‘My Girlfriend, The Moon’?”

Zuko is quick to agree, and they start revising lyrics and determining a good pace. There are moments, when Sokka is talking, where Zuko’s golden eyes are intensely focused on Sokka. Only on Sokka. _It’s so tender Sokka thinks he might die._

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

The weeks pass by with ease. Sokka finds comfort and familiarity every time he steps into The Jasmine Dragon, with either Zuko or Iroh immediately greeting him warmly. Sokka and Zuko work on song composition, joke about some of the tea shop’s customers, and talk about their friends. Zuko finds out that Sokka got a helix piercing with Suki on a whim. Sokka finds out that Zuko learned how to throw knives from Mai, who Zuko says is ‘an absolute menace of an intimidating genius master’. They talk about their families. Zuko only talks about Iroh, and Sokka doesn’t push and ask about his sister or parents. Turns out Zuko’s been living with Iroh since he was 16 and started working at The Jasmine Dragon around that point. Not because Zuko had to, but because he wanted to. _‘It gave me something to do,’ he had admitted to Sokka. ‘I was young, I was angry, and I just needed something to do. But I’ve grown to love it, now. If nothing else, I think that Uncle might accidentally burn the place down if I were to leave.’_ In return, Sokka tells Zuko about Katara and Gran Gran. About sea prune stew and arctic hen. About how his dad isn’t around often anymore but always manages to call at least once a week.

The Gaang piles onto Zuko’s basement couch every weekend. 

They record ‘Fan & Sword’. Suki and Sokka make up a dance to the recording after it’s finished. No one else learns it ( _but Zuko laughs_ ). 

They record ‘My Girlfriend, The Moon’. Katara stays while Zuko and Sokka edit the song, and the three of them listen to it all together for the first time, and Katara tells Sokka that she thinks Yue would be proud ( _if Sokka sheds a tear, it stays between the three of them_ ). 

They record ‘Air Nomad’. Mai and Ty Lee swing by, and when The Gaang records, Ty Lee dances right beside Suki ( _Sokka and Zuko decide to keep in Suki’s light laughter; it complements the piece perfectly_ ). Mai makes snide comments on the couch with Zuko and Sokka, but even Sokka knows she’s having a good time with them all. Aang sends the finalized recording to his foster father, Gyatso, who writes everyone a personalized letter gushing about their art ( _including one for Zuko, and the flash of pride bursting on his face for the slightest moment becomes ingrained in Sokka’s head_ ). 

They record ‘Sweat’. Toph accidentally flings out a drumstick during one of her takes and it hits Sokka straight in the head. It doesn’t hurt, his friends all laugh at the situation, and Sokka good-humoredly joins them and chuckles off the pain ( _and if Zuko brushes his thumb across his forehead and asks if he’s all right, then maybe he’s allowed to take a few seconds before replying_ ).

During their entire time together Sokka gets acquainted with Zuko’s casual touches. A brush of fingers when Zuko passes him tea at the shop. A nudge on the shoulder when Sokka makes particularly bad jokes. A lean into Sokka’s personal space as he gets closer to the notebook, _closer to Sokka,_ to read their revised lyrics. _Sokka holds his breath in every time. The moments are too delicate to accidentally blow away_. 

Sokka’s a lot of things, but he’s not dumb. He sees the fatal abyss of affection crawling up to him, but he doesn’t dare budge the slightest inch.

_He’d rather lose himself in the trenches than lose the part of Zuko that makes the smallest smile touch him like the gentlest warmth_.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

The day It All Goes To Shit starts out with a simple text from Katara.

**Katara [11:53AM]:** aang and i are painting our nails in the bathroom. come hang?

Sokka sits up in bed with a grumble. Momo looks up at him before immediately falling back asleep. 

It’s already noon, so Sokka can’t find a justifiable reason to stay in bed. He throws on a shirt he finds on the floor and hopes that it’s clean enough that Katara won’t complain about him smelling. He throws his hair back up in his wolf tail and saunters over to the bathroom.

“Sokka! Good morning,” Aang greets, smiling up at him from the floor. Katara’s sitting on the ledge of their bathtub, one foot propped up on the toilet seat. She’s got a bottle of blue nail polish in her hand and grunts a welcome at Sokka as she paints a pinky toe.

“Blue today, huh?” Sokka comments, leaning up against their sink.

“Well, since we’re recording ‘Mint’ today, we thought it would be cute,” Katara says, lips bit in a frown as she concentrates on her task at hand. 

“Oh, right,” Sokka says blankly. “’ _Is that why your nails are always painted blue_ ’. Huh. Forgot about that line.”

Katara glances up from her foot to level a judging look at her brother. “You and Aang literally wrote this song, Sokka. And _that line_ is in the chorus, which gets repeated.”

Sokka yawns. “It’s early, okay?”

“It’s noon,” she chides before going back to painting her nails.

“Back me up, buddy,” Sokka says, nudging Aang.

Aang looks visibly uncomfortable and scratches at the back of his neck. “Well, Sokka, it _is_ noon…”

“Fine,” Sokka sighs, slapping a hand to his face and massaging it. “Why did you guys want me to be here?”

“So we could paint your nails, too!” Aang beams. It’s then that Sokka realizes that Aang himself is sporting fresh blue nail polish. 

“Oh, Aang, don’t fall for that, it’s not manly!”

“Shut up, Sokka. I think it’d be really cute if we all wore it to record tonight,” Katara huffs, finishing up her own paint job. “Now give me your hands.” 

Sokka begrudgingly obliges. 

The three of them spend the rest of the afternoon in their living room, lounging together and watching cheesy rom coms. Aang and Katara get completely invested, and Sokka holds back his snarky comments. After a particularly horrid Hallmark movie, Aang gets up to give Appa a quick walk before Suki’s due to pick them up for a ride to Zuko’s.

“What’d you think of the movie?” Katara asks, walking briefly into the kitchen to put their popcorn bowls in the sink.

“Katara, you know how I feel about these stupid dramas,” Sokka sighs, following her into the kitchen for the sake of an after-snack ( _an after-snack is a snack after eating a snack. A brilliant invention of Sokka’s, if he gets to say so, himself)_. “They make love look easy and horribly sticky at the same time. It’s gross.”

“How so?” she asks, leaning against their kitchen counter.

“Nothing about love is really easy,” Sokka says. “I mean, I’m just guessing.”

“Or,” Katara starts, raising an eyebrow, “you’re just pining.”

Sokka glares at her.

She raises both her arms. “Just saying! Mr. Has-A-Crush-On-His-Music-Friend-And-Finds-Every-Reason-To-Be-By-His-Side-Despite-Work-And-Family-And-Friends-And—”

“—Okay! I get it,” Sokka interrupts. “Whatever, Katara.”

She must take pity on him, because she lowers her hands and looks at the floor. “Any updates with him?”

Her words bounce around painfully in Sokka’s brain. “No,” he mutters. “I don’t really know what’s going on, I’m really not thinking about it, actually.”

“Sokka,” she chides, taking a step closer to him. “What have you been thinking about, then?”

“He never eats seal jerky but he always has a fresh supply in his house for me,” Sokka says. The words shock his system. Once they’re out, though, more tumble through his lips. “I know it’s physically impossible for someone’s eyes to radiate warmth, but somehow, his do. All of this and more I’ve realized. And that’s all that it is, all that it really can be right now, right? Just a collection of realizations. They’re hopeful, but they aren’t anything concrete.”

Katara tilts her head and speaks softly. “Having feelings for someone is always terrifying at first. It’s unnerving; your world shifts and suddenly there’s another person your brain is accommodating for, whether you welcome it or not. It’s especially isolating and awful when you don’t think it’s reciprocated.”

Sokka doesn’t say anything but focuses his eyes on a floor tile. Katara shuffles forward and captures him in a hug.

“Just know that we’re here for you, me and Aang. You’ve got people to rely on, even if you’re tumbling head-over-heels by yourself. But if I’m being honest with you, I don’t think you are.”

Sokka just begins to return the hug when he hears someone clearing their throat by the kitchen entrance. He and Katara jump apart from each other in surprise.

“Agni, Aang, you scared me!” Katara breathes out, clutching her hands to her chest.

"Sorry,” Aang says sheepishly. “I thought you guys had heard me come in, my bad.”

Appa appears from behind Aang and decides to lie down right in front of Sokka, flipping his belly up and sticking out his tongue. Sokka takes pity on the dog and gives him belly rubs.

“What’s this about Sokka falling for someone?” Aang asks after a few silent moments.

Katara bites her lips and looks nervously between everyone in the room.

Sokka sighs and takes pity on her. He doesn’t want to introduce any secrets into his sister’s relationship. “It’s just this stupid thing I’m feeling towards Zuko. Don’t worry about it, I’m fine.”

Aang groans and falls to the floor. “Dang it, now I owe Suki twenty dollars.”

“What?” Sokka asks incredulously, whipping his head up to glare at the younger man. “What did you just say, Aang?”

Aang tilts his head up in anguish. “Suki and I had a bet as to when you’d get together. I said it would be after the album was all wrapped up, but she was convinced it’d be before that.”

“We’re not together!” Sokka shouts, feeling like Aang was missing _the most vital piece of information_. 

Aang opens an eye to look at Sokka curiously. “What?”

“We’re not together. Haven’t gotten together, currently aren’t together, will probably never be together,” Sokka huffs.

Aang takes a second before pursing his lips. “ _Probably_ is a key word, Sokka.”

Sokka can feel anger bubble to his surface. It’s not aimed at Aang, it’s not aimed at anyone, it’s just… festering within him. 

Katara seems to realize this and grabs his arm, distracting his mind from this feeling. “Listen, Sokka, we don’t have to talk about this now if you don’t want to. Why don’t you grab the blue nail polish from the bathroom so that we can bring it over to Zuko’s to do-up everyone else?”

“Fine,” he responds quickly, moving out of the kitchen as fast as his legs will allow him.

He finds the nail polish and throws it in his backpack, and then heads to his bedroom to grab his laptop. Suki’s due to swing by any minute now. He catches a glimpse of himself in his mirror and fixes the strands of hair that have fallen out of his wolf tail.

Aang knocks on his door and Sokka acknowledges him with just a look. He comes in anyways and stands behind Sokka, both of them looking at the other in the reflection.

“You look good,” Aang comments nicely. “Your necklace is a bit skewed though, here, let me fix it.”

Sokka allows Aang to reach behind his neck to fix his jewelry. Aang catches Sokka’s eyes in the mirror and he sticks his tongue out at the younger but taller man, which Aang gleefully reciprocates instantly. They start laughing together.

“All ready to go seduce a boy,” Aang says proudly. Sokka playfully shoves him.

“Poor Iroh doesn’t know what’s about to hit him.”

“Gross!”

“Hate the game, not the player.”

**Suki [5:56PM]:** we here

**Suki [5:56PM]:** outside ur door

**Suki [5:56PM}:** dsafn wer s d f fg dg dfadsfda

**Suki [5:56PM]:** (toph says hi) :’)

Aang and Sokka simultaneously check their phones and giggle. 

“Come on, handsome, you’ve got an old man to seduce,” Aang says, playfully hitting his shoulder before walking out his door. 

“Ah yes, the ripe old age of twenty-four,” Sokka mutters, fixing the sleeves of his white sweatshirt in the mirror before following Aang’s lead.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

They get to Zuko’s house in no time. 

Zuko opens the door two seconds after they ring the doorbell, and Sokka saunters in as if he owns the place. He gives Zuko a quick hug, which the other man gladly reciprocates. The rest of The Gaang files in after him, each saying their own hellos to Zuko. 

“Where’s Iroh?” Sokka asks after he’s entered the kitchen, expecting to greet the elderly uncle he’s grown to adore.

“He’s deep-cleaning the shop,” Zuko replies, grimacing at the thought. “Crazy old man.”

“Dang, Sokka, now you can’t seduce him!” Aang jokes, elbowing Sokka’s side.

Zuko looks on curiously as Sokka splutters.

“Damn, Zuko, if Iroh’s not here making us tea, what’s the point of coming by?” Suki playfully complains.

“My recording equipment? My expertise? My company?” Zuko offers.

Suki gives him a contemplative stare. “Nah,” she says after a few moments.

Toph cackles beside her.

“Fine, fine,” Zuko grumbles. “Let’s just head downstairs and do this thing.”

They get settled in Zuko’s basement and Sokka pulls his laptop out of his bag. Zuko sits beside him, pulling out his headphones and opening the recording software on his own laptop. Sokka decides to mess with him and puts on the headphones before Zuko can protest. 

“Hey Katara,” Aang says quietly, but just loud enough for his voice to be picked up by his microphone. Sokka can hear him talk through the headphones. “How lucky are we to record this right now. I remember writing it and being so nervous about telling you how I felt, and now I get to sing it with you by my side in front of all of our friends.”

Sokka looks up at the two of them. They’re holding hands and Katara is blushing. 

“You’ve always been an incessantly romantic soul,” Katara murmurs. Sokka doesn’t need to look; he can _hear_ her smile. 

Aang chuckles and takes a step closer to her. “And you’ve always been the reason my heart beats.”

Sokka takes off the headphones and averts his eyes. Zuko nudges him, a silent question in his eyes: _are you okay?_ He hands Zuko the headphones and smiles reassuringly at him before standing to address the band.

“All right guys! ‘Mint’ is up tonight, are you all ready?”

They cheer from behind their instruments. 

“Dope. Zuko, we ready to record?”

"We’ve been recording ever since I turned the software on,” he says, giving Sokka a look.

Sokka rolls his eyes. “Right. Okay! On the count of three. One, two…”

With a flourishing gesture from Sokka, Katara strums the opening lines to the song on her guitar. Aang starts to sing.

_The voice in my head sounds a lot like your laugh_

_And it tingles its way down my spine to my calf_

_I walk with the weight of your light in my veins_

_You’ve conquered my heart and destroyed all my pain_

_Funny how we’ve never talked through what’s next_

_So much of the future’s unknown and complex_

_I think I’ll be fine only if we don’t part_

_Read through these lines; you’ve always been smart_

_You’re the cold mint on my lips when I wake_

_Is that why your nails are always painted blue?_

_Is your impact on me_

_like my impact on you?_

_Met you long before I first felt this way_

_It’s only grown stronger with each passing day_

_Pretty soon I’ll forget how it felt before_

_You gave me the laughter I’ve grown to think for._

_You’re the cold mint on my lips when I wake_

_Is that why your nails are always painted blue?_

_Is your impact on me_

_like my impact on you?_

_We met in October, it was snowing, you in blue,_

_Your hair was angelic, honey in your shampoo_

_Our friendship’s the focus when I reminisce_

_But I think it’d be better if sealed by a kiss._

_I think we’d be better if sealed by a kiss_

_Katara, you’re why I have these words to spew;_

_Is your impact on me_

_like my impact on you?_

With a final swipe of Suki’s violin, the song ends. Katara catapults into Aang’s open arms. Sokka rolls his eyes as they kiss.

Zuko takes his headphones off. “Well, that was…”

“Full of the oogies? Why yes, Zuko, it was,” Sokka supplies, not nearly as disgusted as he sounds.

Zuko snorts and goes back to his laptop for a few seconds. Sokka flashes a thumbs up to Suki, who is steering clear of Katara and Aang. She mirrors his gesture, smiling sweetly.

“Okay, I’ve saved that take, good job guys. Who wants to go first on the solo recordings?” Zuko calls out.

Toph volunteers, so Zuko stands up to hook her up with the equipment she’ll need. The rest of the group comes over to the couch and joins Sokka. Aang steals the spot that Zuko just vacated, meaning that when he comes back, his thighs won’t be within an inch of Sokka’s. _Which is fine. Sure._ _He’s only a little bit bitter. Just a bit._

The recording process goes by swimmingly, and somewhere in the midst of it all Sokka winds up right next to Zuko again, _thank Agni_. As they wait for Suki to tune her violin, Zuko suddenly reaches out to inspect Sokka’s hand.

“Your nails. They’re blue,” Zuko says, blinking, surprised.

“Your hair. It’s black,” Sokka says back, perfectly imitating Zuko’s tone.

Zuko huffs and rolls his eyes, dropping Sokka’s hand from his. “I was just trying to say they look neat.”

“I brought the blue nail polish with me, if you wanted me to paint yours,” Sokka offers, hopeful.

Zuko looks back up at Sokka strangely. He opens his mouth to say something, but then Suki calls out that she’s ready to go, and the moment passes without conclusion.

They wrap up recording in under four hours, which seems impressive given the fact that it’s their longest song yet. Aang is quick to ask Suki to drive them home, since he has to be at his job early the next morning. She obliges, and soon, Sokka and Zuko are left alone in the house.

“Snack time?” Zuko says, lolling his head to his shoulder as he looks at Sokka.

“Snack time,” Sokka confirms.

They both haul their laptops upstairs and settle on the island counter. Sokka, familiar with the layout of the kitchen, opens the cabinet with seal jerky. He grabs that and the fire flakes, the latter of which he lobs over to Zuko, who looks at him with an amused smile. _It wraps around his heart and Sokka could probably die._

“Let’s listen to the recordings from the top,” he says, instead of focusing on how his chest seems to be constricting from Zuko’s smile. He takes the seat next to Zuko and leans into the other man’s space.

“From the top,” Zuko echoes, pressing play on their very first audio file.

What they first listen to isn’t an instrument. It’s not any striking of chords, but rather, a voice, speaking softly. Aang’s words to Katara, immortalized in a tiny file on Zuko’s laptop.

_“Hey Katara. How lucky are we to record this right now. I remember writing it and being so nervous about telling you how I felt, and now I get to sing it with you by my side in front of all our friends.” “You’ve always been an incessantly romantic soul.” “And you’ve always been the reason my heart beats.”_

Zuko gnaws on his lip. “Aang’s got quite a way with words.”

“I gave him a few pointers when he was first trying to smooth talk the ladies,” Sokka says offhandedly. Zuko coughs. “But you’re right. I guess he must be a natural.”

“Yeah.”

An idea suddenly strikes Sokka. “Can you compress that audio?” he asks Zuko. 

Zuko frowns. “Yeah, why? Do you want to save it for their wedding or something?”

“No, that’d be gross,” he grimaces. “I actually think that might be a cool intro to the song. We can isolate Katara’s opening guitar noises and just make them longer, so that we can layer this audio in. Like a little auditory vignette. That’d be cute, right? And this _is_ a cute song.”

Zuko’s eyes brighten. “Yeah, I think that could work. Let’s try.”

Forty minutes later, Sokka’s idea becomes real. They listen through the first thirty seconds of the song. It’s ethereal and touching. Sokka has layered Aang’s voice to gently rest above Katara’s guitar, so that his words feel like a happy dream touching the space of reality.

“Fuck,” Zuko mutters beneath his breath. “This sounds really fucking good.”

It’s not often that Zuko curses so flippantly, and Sokka wants to laugh, but he doesn’t. Instead, he searches out Zuko’s golden eyes, and they’re molten, staring at the screen of his laptop as if it holds something special. 

“You helped make it sound that way,” Sokka reminds him.

“You came up with the idea,” he replies, looking up at Sokka. “It’s brilliant.”

“Okay,” Sokka enunciates slowly. “Anyways. We’ve got more work to do, chop chop.”

Zuko laughs his little huffy laugh and Sokka wants to live in this moment forever. But it passes, and within the next two hours, they finalize the audio together. The end result is mystical and romantic and everything Sokka could hope for. He can’t wait for Katara and Aang to hear it.

“Ten bucks that they’ll use this for their first dance at their wedding,” Zuko bets.

Sokka smirks. “Have you met Aang? He’s, like, the least full-of-himself person on the planet. You’re on.”

Sokka quickly sends the audio file to the rest of The Gaang through email, and then looks at the time.

“It’s midnight,” Sokka observes, looking into Zuko’s open face. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not really tired.”

“Me, neither,” he agrees. “And I’m not working at the shop tomorrow. Hey, earlier you said something about having the blue nail polish on you. Is your offer to paint my nails still valid?”

"Oh, fuck yes,” Sokka beams, dashing downstairs to grab the nail polish from his backpack in record speed. He comes back to find Zuko cleaning up the island counter.

“Want to head somewhere else to do this? Since we won’t be working on anything,” Zuko says. There’s a hint of heat in the red of his cheeks. _Sokka will die in his flames_.

“Um, sure,” Sokka responds. “Where to, Sifu Hotman?”

“Stop calling me that,” Zuko says, rolling his eyes. “And um, we can go up to my bedroom? If that’s okay?”

Under no circumstances would Sokka ever ask for confirmation when inviting _a friend_ to his own bedroom. There would be no need to, because it would never be weird with _a friend_ , right? Sokka lets these thoughts fester in his mind. _Yes, it’s probably wishful thinking, but what damage can a little hope do, anyway?_

Zuko leads the way upstairs, and Sokka takes in all the red-and-gold ornate decorations that line the halls. At the top of the stairs is a photo in front of the old Fire Nation Records Building—Zuko is young in it, maybe only ten, standing next to a girl who’s only a few inches shorter than him.

“Who’s this?” Sokka asks, stepping near the picture even as Zuko continues to move down the hallway.

He only stops for a second to look back at Sokka. “My sister,” he replies simply, before clearing his throat and moving on. “Now come on, we’re almost there.”

Sokka spares one more glance at the photograph, _at Zuko looking so young and carefree, without his scar_ , before following him into the last room on the left in the hallway.

The bedroom is lofty and mostly empty. A pair of dual dao swords decorates a wall, and a large bed takes up most of the space. There’s a closed wardrobe to one side, a couch on the other. Zuko takes a seat on his bed, and Sokka stands awkwardly in the doorway, not quite knowing where to go. 

"Sit next to me,” Zuko says, somehow knowing what Sokka was thinking. “You have to paint my nails, right?”

Sokka clears his throat. “Right.”

He moves to sit next to Zuko and folds his legs underneath himself, _criss cross applesauce on Zuko’s bed, because his life is a movie_. “Give me your hands,” Sokka says gently. Zuko immediately follows his direction, planting them wordlessly on his knees. Sokka gulps.

“Have you ever painted your nails before?” he asks as he opens up the bottle of polish.

“Once,” Zuko admits. _His voice is smoke and the amount of it that Sokka has inhaled can’t be good for his lungs_. “Mai painted them black for me one Halloween. Back when we were in college. We went out to this party in Ember Island, you know the place?” Sokka nods. “Yeah. We dressed up as pirates together.”

Sokka can’t help but smile at that, even though he’s biting his tongue down in concentration as he makes the first stroke on Zuko’s thumb. “That’s nice. Do you and Mai usually wear matching costumes on Halloween?”

“Yes. We started doing it when we were little, around seven. We’d dress up in a matching set with Ty Lee and my sister.”

“And they weren’t with you in college?”

“Ty Lee joined a circus troupe actually,” Zuko says, laughing. “She’s surprisingly flexible. She’s a really great contortionist.”

Sokka laughs along and waits for Zuko to tell him where his sister was. He never does.

After a few seconds of silence goes by, Sokka decides to fill the conversation with more light questions. “What’s been your favorite group costume with them?”

Zuko ponders this for a moment as Sokka finishes the first coat on one hand. “One of the very first years that we dressed up together, we dressed up as tourists. We all wore Hawaiian shirts and khaki shorts. We knocked on every door that night and took a picture with whoever gave us candy. We told each of them that they were the tourist attraction we were looking for.”

“Oh man, that’s cute. And I’d kill to see you in a Hawaiian shirt,” Sokka chuckles. “Do you have any of those photos lying around?”

“Actually, I might,” Zuko says, cocking his head to the side. “Let me check.”

Zuko removes his hands from Sokka’s knees and begins to get up. “Wait, no!” Sokka exclaims loudly. “I can’t have you messing up your nails. Tell me where to look,” he offers, standing up in Zuko’s place.

Zuko sighs. “Fine. Check my nightstand drawers.”

The top drawer is filled with assorted notebooks and has absolutely no pictures. There’s only one drawer under it, and Sokka opens it. He shuffles things around, as this drawer is a lot deeper than the other. “I’m not seeing it, are you sure—”

At that moment, Sokka’s hand collides with a plastic bottle. He grabs and twists it to read the front label, just to know what it is, and the words hit his brain with the force of a freighter.

_Lube lube lube he has found Zuko’s lube this is Zuko’s lube as in lubricant as in this is Zuko’s lube and it is an open bottle so it has been used so that means that Zuko has used this lube and this is lube which is used for things and Zuko has used it for things—_

"You okay there?” Zuko drawls, before turning to face Sokka. Sokka can’t look at him. He hears Zuko choke, somewhere in his periphery. 

Summoning his courage, Sokka puts back the bottle and whirls around at his friend. “Sorry!” he squeaks out.

“Uhhhhhhhhh—”

“—Listen, it’s okay, no judgment, lube is a totally cool and okay thing to own, very exciting, actually—”

“Sokka, shut the fuck up,” Zuko groans, covering his face with his hands. “Please.”

“Okay,” Sokka replies gently, settling back onto Zuko’s bed. He sits still for only a moment before opening his mouth again. “Hey, I just finished reading a book about lube. It was a really great piece of _non-friction_! Get it?”

Zuko buries his head deeper into his hands. “You know, Sokka, I’ve often wondered about my place in the universe. Life fills itself with such pain and disappointment. My Uncle reminds me to keep my head up, to examine the beauty in things around me and appreciate the life that I have left to live. Who knew it would also be filled with pain.”

Sokka rolls his eyes. “Okay, Zuko, nice monologue, but now your emo hours are up. It’s only lube. It surprised me at first, sorry, but it’s not that bad. It’s _good_ , in fact, if I do recall some sex ed lessons from primary school—”

“—please stop—”

“—but now, that moment of lube discovery is in the past, we’re just two friends sitting on your bed, and I believe I was painting your nails.” Sokka concludes with a pointed look on his face. _He’s acting much more confident than he feels. Now that he knows exactly where the lube is and even though_ nothing _is going to happen, his imagination is tempted._

Zuko sighs before straightening his back and once again reaching out to place his hands on Sokka’s knees. His cheeks are crimson and he’s averting all attempts at eye-contact.

_He should really shut up about it, it shouldn’t still be on his mind, Zuko is clearly uncomfortable, it wouldn’t be right—_

"I think it’s very responsible to have lube, honestly,” Sokka says, beginning to put the second coat of polish on his pinky. “Makes it comfortable for the ladies.”

Zuko’s eyes snap up hurriedly at Sokka. Sokka smudges a bit of paint on Zuko’s knuckles by accident. 

“What?” Sokka asks.

“I’m gay,” Zuko says simply. 

The two of them just look at each other, _golden sun and cerulean tide_. The gaze lasts for mere seconds but seems to span eternities.

“Oh,” Sokka replies dumbly. “Well, that’s still responsible, you know? Makes it comfortable for the fellas.”

Zuko nods the most hesitant of nods. “Right.”

A fraction of Sokka’s braincells return to his body, and he says, “Thanks for telling me, by the way. I’m always here if you need anything.” _Like a hug. Like a kiss. Like a reason to use more of the lube._

“Thanks,” Zuko murmurs. His face had been fading back into its normal ivory, but this one word is accompanied with a tinge of heat to his cheeks.

“Okay,” Sokka breathes. “ _Now_ let’s get back to the nail polish. I think Mai had the right idea all those years ago, black is definitely more your color than this minty blue.”

Zuko considers this momentarily. “Next time we’ll have to switch it up, then.”

There is a sparkle in his eyes and Sokka feels alight. “Next time,” he echoes softly. He forces his eyes to return at the task at hand.

After ten minutes, Zuko’s nails are done. Sokka snaps some pictures on his phone as Zuko examines them.

“Hey,” he objects when he notices what Sokka is doing. “Stop submitting me to the terrifying ordeal of being known.”

Sokka laughs. “Too late. You were submitted. And Agni declared that you were cute,” he says, showing Zuko the photo. 

Zuko looks at it, contemplative, before he catches the time at the top of Sokka’s phone. “Shit, it’s one in the morning.”

Zuko’s eyes flicker up to Sokka. _They’re alive, molten, liquid gold gently ebbing and flowing._

“I’m not tired yet,” Sokka admits. 

“I am not, either.”

“Great.”

“Great.”

“Cool.”

“Cool.”

Sokka lets out a breath of laughter, and Zuko does his little huff laugh thing, _because it’s one in the morning, because the laws of conversation don’t apply here, in Zuko’s bed, less than a foot apart from each other_. Sokka lets his back hit Zuko’s mattress and gazes at Zuko until he lies down next to him.

“Now that we’ve done ‘Mint’, what’s next?” Zuko asks quietly.

“That leaves us with ‘Kya’,” Sokka murmurs.

Zuko twists his body, so that he’s lying on his side facing Sokka. “What’s ‘Kya’ about, again?”

Sokka plasters on an empty smile. “My mom.”

Zuko frowns. “Why are you smiling like that? Does she not like it, or something?”

“She died when I was ten,” he admits quietly.

Zuko exhales, the fight leaving his body. “Shit, Sokka, I’m sorry.”

Sokka accepts his words. He feels tender and exposed.

Zuko moves back onto his back, staring at his ceiling even as Sokka moves to look over at him. 

“My mom, she, um,” Zuko starts, before clearing his throat. “She left one night when I was young, too. Woke me up at Agni-knows-when, whispered a goodbye I can only remember when I’m really tired. Sometimes I think the memory is just a mirage of my mind.”

“What was she like?” Sokka asks softly.

“Gentle,” Zuko replies, small smile on his face. He speaks as if he’s making conversation with a ghost. “Gentle and beautiful and caring.” He frowns. “But then she left, and she didn’t take me with her. And I’ve never understood that.”

Sokka takes a breath. “I didn’t know what to do after mom passed away. Katara lashed out, my dad was lost, and I couldn’t fix it. I couldn’t make it right. My mom went somewhere I couldn’t follow, she went somewhere that I couldn’t bring her back from, and it killed me inside.”

Zuko slowly looks back to Sokka. “I can barely stand to talk about her,” Zuko confesses, eyes drooping and mouth tilting downwards.

Sokka reaches out to cradle Zuko’s hands. The easy response would be deflection; they don’t need to talk about their absent mothers and their childhood trauma. But there’s an air of understanding that is mostly new to Sokka, _felt briefly before when Sokka confided in Zuko about Yue_ , and his heart feels soothed by the way they both lean into each other.

“Azula unraveled,” Zuko whispers. “She never admitted it, never got help for it until after my father got locked away. But she needed help when my mom left. And I couldn’t help her. She deteriorated, and I couldn’t even hold myself together enough to watch.”

"You were a child, Zuko,” Sokka murmurs. 

"And she was my sister,” he replies desperately. “Mom left us. Father pitted us against each other and kept Azula afloat enough that she forgot she was drowning. The whole family failed her. Iroh saved me after the burn; gave me a place to stay, made sure I was fed, brought me into therapy; but no one saved Azula. Father wouldn’t let her go with me.”

Sokka can feel his blood boil, but he refuses to let his emotions seep into his next whispered words. “After the burn?”

Zuko lifts Sokka’s hand and rests it on the scarred side of his face. “My dad’s finest work,” he says. _The bitterness in his voice overpowers everything._

Anger doesn’t even begin to describe the feeling wrecking a path through Sokka’s body. He’s familiar with the feeling; he felt it when his dad spent the entire month after Kya died in his bedroom, he felt it when Katara yelled and sobbed at the funeral but Sokka couldn’t muster up a single tear. He feels it now, picturing the young Zuko, the lanky boy in front of the Fire Nation Records building, smiling pretty with his sister by his side, going home to an abusive household.

Sokka can’t forgive or forget. The fury in his bones won’t do any good if spilled into the moment, though, so Sokka mentally pushes it away to focus on the boy in front of him. He won’t forgive or forget. But he can and will flood tender caresses into Zuko’s life, create new memories of love, so that they don’t have to look further at their past grief.

Sokka rubs his thumb against Zuko’s scar lightly. He stares into Zuko’s good eye, which softens under his gaze. He meets the golden that first struck him all those months ago, the depths of which have haunted his dreams in the days and in the nights.

Sokka leans in and Zuko doesn’t move. His eyes don’t flinch. Sokka summons all his courage before pressing his lips against the bottom of Zuko’s scar, where the burn began to warp his skin. Zuko keeps his eyes open, intense on Sokka. Sokka slowly moves his lips upward, kissing his way over to Zuko’s burned ear, to his temple, to his forehead. There is heat radiating off Zuko’s skin, and Sokka can’t tell if it originates from underneath the old burn or from the blush encroaching onto Zuko’s good cheek.

After deeming the scar loved enough, Sokka tilts his head backwards a smidge and meets Zuko’s eye. Zuko looks so overwhelmingly _open_ and _comfortable_ and _there must be something that Sokka can say_ except for _he doesn’t need to_ because somehow, someone, _Agni knows who_ , leans in and connects their two lips together.

There’s a sense of urgency behind the way they kiss each other. _Sokka needs him to know that he is loved, that he is cared for, Sokka needs him to stop looking and sounding so damned sad, and if it takes a kiss to fix him, then Sokka will give him a kiss_. Sokka reaches up and cradles Zuko’s face within his hands, and this serves as a catalyst for Zuko. 

Zuko pushes Sokka onto his back and rapidly climbs on top of him, connecting their lips again instantly. Sokka moans into the other boy’s mouth, _and the sound that comes out of Zuko is a symphony in itself, and Sokka isn’t sure if he’ll ever be able to hear other sounds the same way ever again, now that he’s heard the most glorious one to ever exist_. Sokka moves his hands down to Zuko’s neck, to Zuko’s arms, to Zuko’s chest, _touching_ and _feeling_ and _needing to map out every curve of his_ _body_. 

Sokka pulls Zuko closer to him, yanks him in by his shirt. Their kiss is broken by the swift movement and the sharp exhale falling out of Zuko’s lips is the sexiest thing Sokka has ever heard.

“Fuck, Sokka,” Zuko breathes before connecting their lips again, _and Sokka takes back his previous thought, because_ this _is surely the sexiest sound he has ever heard Zuko produce._

Sokka has experience kissing and being kissed. None of that experience holds a flame to what is currently happening. He’s chest-to-chest with the man he’s been swooning over for months. Zuko’s weight rests on his waist, and when Sokka arches up into him, he’s met with a moan in his mouth. There’s nothing better. Zuko enthusiastically reciprocates by grinding down on Sokka, and Sokka’s hands venture from Zuko’s sides to his hair, so that he has something to grip onto.

They continue in this fashion for what feels like years wrapped up into mere seconds; when they finally part, Sokka can see the time on Zuko’s alarm clock and sees that only thirty minutes have passed since he laid down on the bed. _Not long enough. Never long enough._

Zuko settles in beside Sokka, snuggling up against his ribcage. Sokka immediately wraps the man in his arms and leans in to sprinkle a few more kisses on Zuko’s face. Zuko laughs, swatting him away playfully, before contentedly throwing his head back and looking at the ceiling.

“Well,” Zuko starts, before sparing a glance back at Sokka and promptly shutting up again. His hands tangle in Sokka’s hair and he presses their foreheads together.

“Well,” Sokka echoes, leaning in slightly to connect their lips again. “This was special.”

“Yeah,” Zuko chuckles, nestling his head on Sokka’s shoulder again.

Sokka matches his easy laugh and closes his eyes. “Great.”

“Great.”

“Cool.”

“Cool.”

“Who knew all this childhood trauma talk would lead to you snuggling up to me,” Sokka muses. Zuko shoves him playfully.

“You know,” Sokka says after a few comfortable moments, “I’ve never really done this with a guy before.”

He begins to laugh his comment off, but then he feels Zuko’s breathe stifle beneath him. Everything about the other man suddenly stiffens, and right as Sokka opens his mouth to ask if he’s okay, Zuko jolts upwards.

“You’ve never really done this with a guy before,” Zuko echoes, sounding _so different_ from usual. His voice is higher pitched, somewhat hysterical. “Right.”

Sokka sits up and reaches out for Zuko, but he quickly stands up and begins pacing his room.

“Yeah,” Sokka says, confused. “But, you know, I’d still really like to try this all out.”

“I’m not just someone you can try out,” Zuko yells, his fingers pulling at his hair. 

Sokka slams a hand to his forehead. He’s confused, and not sure as to what to say to convey to Zuko that _he’s been thinking of kissing him for so long now, he wants Zuko to be tucked into his side again, more than anything else in the world_. “No, that’s not—”

“Maybe you should go,” Zuko says, and his voice, once panicked, now sounds resolute. _Guarded_. “Actually, yeah. I think you should go.”

“Why should I leave?” Sokka asks, frowning up at Zuko. Zuko’s not even looking at him.

“You need time to think about this.”

Sokka _has_ thought about this. He’s thought about it _extensively_. That’s not what comes out of his mouth next, though.

“You don’t know what I need,” he sputters defensively. 

Zuko stops pacing. He exhales, closes his eyes, and bows his head. 

“You’re right,” he says. “But I know what I need. And I need you to leave.”

“Zuko—”

“Please,” he says, and that one word breaks Sokka’s heart. Zuko is hurting and slouched into himself and Sokka wants to reach out and kiss him better but he’s not brave enough to do it. He’s not sure enough of himself.

“Okay,” Sokka rasps. _His tongue feels heavy and his throat is constricting and of course he can’t breathe properly, he just gave all his air to Zuko’s lungs and now the man won’t even_ look _at him_.

Sokka stands up, moving closer to Zuko, but Zuko takes a miniscule step backwards and Sokka stops. His hand hovers in the air for a moment before he dejectedly swings it back down to his side.

Sokka’s mind is blurring and his eyes are stinging. “I guess I’m going, then,” he says, trying to dredge up any emotion that isn’t _worthlessness, heartbreak, we_ kissed _and it was great, Zuko, why should anyone leave_?

Zuko wrings his hands together. “Do you need a ride?”

Sokka does, but Aang is only a text away. “It’s okay.”

“Okay.”

Sokka makes it to the doorway of the bedroom before turning back to Zuko. 

“If it’s worth anything, I really enjoyed it.”

“Leave,” Zuko demands, turning his back on Sokka.

So Sokka heads downstairs, gathers his things, and leaves. He texts Aang for a ride, but can’t sit still outside of Zuko’s house, so he starts walking in the direction of home. Aang picks him up fifteen minutes into the walk.

“Sokka,” he says softly, “are you okay?”

“Just tired,” Sokka replies, staring out the window. “I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it right now.”

He can feel Aang’s sympathetic gaze on him, but the younger man doesn’t attempt to talk to him anymore. Instead, Aang lightly turns up his music, which is just instrumental piano music. It reminds Sokka of Zuko. Sokka reaches over and turns it off, and Aang gulps, but drives in silence the rest of the way home.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

“Take Appa on a walk.”

“No.”

“Cook steamed sea prunes.”

“No.”

"Call Gran Gran.”

“No.”

“Practice fencing?”

“No.”

Katara scratches her head, running out of ideas. “Watch ‘So You Think You Can Dance?’”

Sokka thinks about this option. “No,” he concludes once more.

Katara sighs. “Fine. Continue to mope on the couch, how about that?”

Sokka buries his hands into Momo’s fur. “Okay.”

She throws up her hands in frustration. “You’re impossible, you know that?”

_And so what if he is? So what if he’s been moping on the couch for the past week, only rising to occasionally go into work? So what if it’s been days since his last shower? So what if he hasn’t heard back from Zuko since they kissed? So what if his texts to the man aren’t being answered? So what?_

Sokka continues the important work of petting Momo as Katara glides into the kitchen. She comes out and throws Sokka an apple. He doesn’t reach out to catch it; instead, it hits him on the shoulder and rolls off onto the cushion beside him.

“Eat,” Katara says, leaving no room for argument. 

"I’m not hungry,” Sokka argues anyway.

Before Katara can seriously consider bodily harm, a pair of keys jangles from outside the front door, and Aang walks inside.

“Hey guys!” he says happily, carrying a bag with him. “I stopped by the store after work and got some cupcakes, if anyone’s interested.”

“I’d love some,” Katara replies, “but Sokka’s probably out, though. He’s _not hungry_.”

Sokka focuses on Momo in his lap. He doesn’t want to see Aang and Katara visibly stress out over him.

Aang clears his throat. “Well, I’ll just leave this in the kitchen. I thought they’d make a good snack before we go to Zuko’s tonight, but maybe they’ll just be a treat for after.”

“You guys are going to Zuko’s tonight?” Sokka asks, finally looking up at him. “Why are you doing that?”

“To record?” Aang says hesitantly. “You’re coming too, right?”

Sokka re-focuses on Momo. Momo starts to purr. “No, I never got a text inviting me.”

Katara approaches slowly, placing a hand on Sokka’s shoulder. “Well, where’s your phone? Maybe you got the texts but just didn’t see it.”

His phone is in his pocket. He hasn’t gotten a text from _anyone_ in at least two days. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t want to admit this to his sister.

In his periphery, he sees Aang checking his own phone. 

“Oh,” Aang mutters, “dang, you’re not in this group text. Sokka, listen, it was probably a mistake—“

“It wasn’t a mistake,” Sokka moans. “I fucked up with Zuko, okay? I don’t know how, exactly, but I definitely fucked up because he doesn’t want to see me. Just go without me tonight, okay? Don’t ask him about it, he probably doesn’t want to talk about what happened at all.”

“Sokka,” Katara sighs, sitting down next to him and his dropped apple. “It was just a kiss, right? I’m sure it can’t be _that_ weird.”

“You weren’t there,” Sokka defends. “He… He _reacted_ to it, you know?”

“Okay, gross, I don’t need to know about Zuko’s _reactions_.”

“That’s not what I meant!” he exclaims. “Look, we kissed, and it was great, but then it wasn’t. And he _very adamantly_ asked me to leave. I know I’m a bit reckless sometimes, but Katara, after a week of not even a single text back, I can take the hint already.”

“Sokka,” Katara tries, looking disappointed.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” he replies, getting up and sending his sister an empty smile. “Have fun tonight, okay? I have to get ready for work.”

“But you don’t work for another three hours!” he hears Katara protest behind him as he slams the door to his bedroom shut. 

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

The three hours before work pass by mindlessly. As does his six hour shift. Everyone in the house is asleep when he gets back, including Momo, who has somehow found a way to climb to the very top of the fridge. He falls into Sokka’s arms when Sokka seeks out a beer to close out the night.

“Crazy cat,” he huffs, getting Momo comfortable against his chest and patting his head. “One day I won’t be here to catch you. And what will happen to you then?”

Momo just meows back at him.

It’s the most productive conversation that Sokka’s had all day.

Sokka heads into his room, beer and cat in tow. He’s tired, exhausted from a shift spent mostly on his feet, disappointed in his and Jet’s rare functionality resulting in no free deformed pizza for the night. He considers going straight to sleep, but then decides to grab his laptop to watch some mindless show before passing out.

He logs into his computer and there’s a notification from his email. It’s from Zuko, with no subject line, and the only thing in the body of the email is the file containing the finalized “Kya” recording.

Time stops slipping past him and now he’s entirely too aware of it. It takes him three minutes to listen through the song, and it feels longer than his entire shift.

He stays up for hours afterwards but never manages a reply.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

“You’d think it’d be common decency, inviting me to the recording for the song that’s about my own dead mother,” Sokka grumbles, flipping through the jewelry options in the store. Suki sends him a disheartened look. “What? I’m right.”

Suki slouches on the couch in the waiting area and sighs. When she asked Sokka to tag along to her septum piercing appointment, she probably expected the conversation to revolve around her piercing. 

There are more pressing matters in Sokka’s head, unfortunately for his friend.

“Sokka, I don’t think there _is_ common protocol for a situation like that. It’s weirdly specific. And hey, he seemed a bit gloomy last night, if that makes you feel better,” Suki says, looking at her nails. 

“When is he _not_ a bit gloomy?”

Suki frowns. “Don’t be a dick about it.”

“I’m not the one that kicked a guy out after making out with him,” Sokka reminds her.

A light smile crashes onto Suki’s face. “Hey,” she says. “It’s kind of fitting, you know?”

“No,” he says, angrily looking at her. “No, I do not know.”

"It’s just that,” she starts, smiling wider, “aren’t you the one who always says to act aloof around a crush? Aren’t you an advocate for that behavior?”

“Well, yeah, but not when Zuko’s using that against me,” Sokka grumbles, slouching next to Suki. 

“Hypocrite.”

“Mean friend.”

Suki laughs, and the sound of it raises Sokka’s spirits a bit. It also brings him out of his head and back to reality.

“So. A septum piercing. Are you ready to get disowned?” Sokka jokes, leaning his head on Suki’s shoulder.

“I can’t wait,” she nods, ruffling Sokka’s hair enough so that most strands fall out of his wolftail. He frowns and fixes it. “If the five tattoos haven’t done it yet, maybe _this_ will be the straw that breaks my mom’s back. Getting the same type of nose piercing that she has. How unoriginal. I’ll probably be disowned by sundown.”

“I’d disown you, too, for following the status quo,” he teases, wiggling his eyebrows. Suki laughs.

“You know, you wouldn’t look half bad with a septum piercing yourself,” Suki ponders after a few moments.

Sokka frowns. “No, thank you. A belly button piercing, however…”

“You’d be just like Britney Spears,” Suki says, feigning wistfulness in her voice.

“I wonder if Zuko would ghost Britney Spears,” Sokka replies. He meant it as a joke, but perhaps, in his quest to forget about Zuko, he shouldn’t have brought Zuko up. But the words tumbled out and Sokka is left with them. Suki frowns a bit, and then turns unusually serious.

“I don’t think he would ghost Britney,” she says, indulging him. “And I don’t think he’s meaning to ghost you. Last night he just looked sad. Every time we brought you up, he seemed nervous. Maybe he’s just scared of everything that happened. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, you know. Don’t give up hope yet.”

Sokka nudges her playfully, but after a few seconds, asks, “Do you really think so?”

Suki rolls her eyes. “Yes, idiot.”

The piercer, a young guy named Teo, swings out to the front of the shop, smiling at the two friends.

“Suki, you’re up!” he says, motioning them to come.

“No more talking about boys, okay?” Suki says as she gets settled in her piercing chair. “Now, you have to hold my hand.”

“Can’t I do both of these things?” Sokka jokes, taking her hand anyway and squeezing it tight.

Suki squeezes back. “No.”

Teo rolls his eyes as he settles into his spot next to Suki. Sokka feels a touch of happiness and warmth spread throughout his chest.

“Thanks for bringing me with you,” he murmurs into Suki’s ear as Teo pulls out the septum jewelry. It’s a silver piece, encrusted with opals.

Suki squeezes his hand harder than he thought possible. He recoils at the pain but is soothed by the comfort of Suki’s small grin.

“Of course,” she murmurs back. “Now, seriously. Shut up. And don’t let go of my fucking hand until I have a piece of metal through my nose.”

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

The second week of Zuko’s silence goes by just as slowly. As does the third. And the fourth. Midway through everything, Zuko emails him the last audio file for the album, the ‘untitled’ song. _It’s a damn shame that Zuko doesn’t know that it was written about him, but that’s not the kind of revelation Sokka feels comfortable sending in email format._

Work goes slow. Jet organizes a pseudo-strike to get better wages, and Sokka joins him, more so out of boredom than solidarity. Their boss, after four days, promises to pay them a quarter more each hour. Jet is satisfied, thinking that their rallying resulted in a 25% pay increase. (It didn’t. The pay raise turns out to be just a literal quarter more every hour. Sokka doesn’t complain, though. It’s technically more than he was making before, anyways.)

The Gaang meets at their house most weeknights. Sokka occasionally contributes a misshapen pizza. He doesn’t have any new lyrics in him, can’t bring himself to write. Aang tries to help out, playing word association games with him, but it’s useless. ( _“Love!” “Alone.” “Happy!” “Not.” “Music!” “Zuko—listen, Aang, can we stop?”_ ) Katara ends up designing the cover art for their album; it’s an old photo of the five of them, and she’s doodled silly sayings over it with silver sharpie. Underneath Sokka’s feet is the word ‘Snoozles’. It looks perfect, but Sokka can’t help but think that it’s missing a certain ‘Sifu Hotman’, and the thought burns at his teetering sanity.

Four weeks after last talking to Zuko, Sokka gets a text.

**Haru [2:03PM]:** blue spirit man says the gaang’s album is done!! when are yall coming over to the tavern and playing thru it!! might I suggest Friday night?? or is that too soon

**Haru [2:03PM]:** also sorry 2 be texting this freakin late

**Haru [2:04PM}:** just wanted to ask <33333 I am yalls biggest stan

Not for the first time, Sokka is a bit taken aback to be The Gaang’s contact for Haru. Aang is clearly the leader of the band; Agni’s sake, it’s _named_ after him. But everyone is comfortable letting Sokka set up gigs and figure out band logistics. It’s endearing.

But right now, it’s a pain in the ass.

_If Zuko talked to Haru about the band’s album being done, then that’s probably it, right? That’s probably the end of Zuko helping out. The end of needing to use Zuko’s equipment, getting to go over to his house. The end of tea shop hangouts and banter over cream puffs._

Sokka tries to push his panging thoughts to the dusty corners of his brain. It doesn’t exactly work, but he’s able to redirect his attention into forming a text to The Gaang’s groupchat.

**Sokka [2:06PM]:** tyro’s this Friday. thoughts?

**Suki [2:07PM]:** yeah I’m down. who’s playing?

**Sokka [2:08PM]:** us maybe? sorry that’s what i meant

**Sokka [2:08PM}:** i shouldve been more clear :/

**Suki [2:10PM]:** :o so ur saying i CANT get blasted on cactus juice on friday night bc i’ll have 2 b playing onstage???????

**Sokka [2:11PM]:** i mean… i wont stop u :o

**Katara [2:11PM]:** suki no

**Katara [2:12PM]:** as long as we are all SOBER i would love to play

**Suki [2:12PM]:** :/ ur no fun katara

**Sokka [2:13PM]:** haru wants yall to play thru the whole album that man is so psyched

**Suki [2:13PM]:** he really is our hype man

**Aang [2:15PM]:**!!!!!! YES i would love that!!

**Katara [2:15PM]:** someone ask toph

**Suki [2:18PM]:** just called. *hacker voice* she’s in

Sokka puts his phone down. He picks it back up. He puts it down again. He looks over at Momo, asleep on his bed, not being helpful in the slightest. He sighs. For the final time, he picks it back up and types out a new message to Zuko.

**Sokka [2:27PM]:** The Gaang’s playing thru the album friday night @ tyro’s. 

**Sokka [2:28PM]:** you should come! if youre not busy

There’s no reply for a few hours. Sokka busies himself by getting ready for work and eating seal jerky in the kitchen. Aang keeps him company, and together, the two of them try to teach Appa to fetch different items; the TV remote, Sokka’s jacket, Aang’s phone (one remarkably unwise time, they try to get Appa to fetch a bag of Sokka’s seal jerky—he comes back, happy as can be, with a completely empty bag). 

Sokka’s grateful for the distractions, but he still jumps at every buzz from his phone. _He should really turn off his email notifications_.

When Zuko’s name finally pops up on his recent notifications, Sokka has to summon up the courage to open the text.

**Zuko [5:44PM]:** I’ll be there to support them.

The text itself is very cold and blunt. Sokka’s not dumb; he can read between the lines and see that Zuko is insinuating that he’s excluding Sokka from his support. But Sokka decides to be the bigger person and not let it get to his head; _because at the very least, he just got his first text back from Zuko in a month (!!!)_.

**Sokka [5:49PM]:** great!!!! cant wait to see you there

Sokka puts his phone away before he can text something stupid, like ‘I miss you so much’, or ‘I haven’t stopped thinking about our kiss’, or even ‘what are you doing tonight, I’m working, but maybe we can hang out after?’.

He gets dressed and goes to work. He makes pizzas. He delivers them. He thinks about all of the things he wants to say to Zuko when he sees him on Friday. He pushes them down. He practices them quietly in the company’s car. He gets along with Jet. He goes home. He goes to bed.

He does this all again, every day, until it’s Friday.

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

“Sokka, it’s freezing outside, go get a jacket,” Katara sighs when Sokka finally exits his bedroom.

“Katara, I’ve spent two hours on this outfit, I don’t need a jacket!”

“Aang, go help Sokka find a jacket, please.”

Aang glances from Katara to Sokka before sending the man a pleading look. “Sokka—”

“All right, fine!” he sighs, throwing his arms up in defeat. “But come help me.”

Sokka’s outfit consists of black skinny jeans, a tucked in white shirt with a painting of a wave in the center of it, and a baggy flannel button-up thrown over it all. His necklace rests comfortably on him, and his hair is pulled back expertly. He has a pair of beat up converse on his feet, and his pants are rolled up twice around the ankles, showing off his tie dye socks.

As they enter his bedroom, Aang goes straight to his closet as Sokka sits down on his bed.

“How about this one?” Aang says, holding out a puffy black coat.

“I look like a kindergartener in that one, it’s way too big,” Sokka moans, putting his head in his hands. “Aang, I’ve spent so long getting this outfit perfect, I really don’t want to add something new to it now. I’ve already envisioned myself talking to Zuko in this outfit! I don’t want to switch it up! That could throw everything off!”

“Sokka,” Aang says firmly, clasping his arms on Sokka’s shoulder. “You _will_ talk to Zuko in that outfit. But, also, you will not freeze tonight. Or else your sister will have my head. Okay?”

“Okay,” Sokka echoes, moving his hands back down to his lap.

Aang goes back to his closet and shuffles around in there for a while. Eventually, he pulls back, a loose jean jacket in his hand. It’s a light denim, with a few patches from local concerts sewn onto the sleeves.

“How about this one?”

Sokka stands up and grabs it from Aang. He puts it on and looks in the mirror.

Aang peers at him and grins. “That looks really good, Sokka.”

Sokka considers himself in the mirror. “You think so?”

“I _know_ so,” Aang responds confidently. “Great! Now come on, Suki’s been waiting outside for ten minutes now.”

Sokka lets Aang drag him outside, feeling somewhat confident in his jacket choice. Honestly, Sokka had forgotten he owned this one; it was stuffed in the back of his closet, so it was mere luck that Aang had found it and pulled it out. Sokka sends a quick mental thank-you to the universe.

The tavern is already busy when they arrive, which is typical for a Friday night. Sokka helps the group haul their instruments to the edge of the stage, and Sokka glances around the tavern for a familiar golden-eyed face. He doesn’t spot one.

“I know that he’ll be here, don’t worry,” Aang whispers into his ear as they walk back to the car for Toph’s cymbals. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sokka mutters. His hands are shaking from nerves, and as soon as he picks up one of the cymbals, it falls out of his wobbly grasp and clangs onto the blacktop.

Aang laughs at him before helping him pick it up again.

They finish unloading Suki’s car and they wait beside the stage. There’s an act going on, some group called The Cave Nomads who are singing a devastatingly awful song called ‘Secret Tunnel’, and Sokka occupies himself by sitting on the very edge of the stage and dangling his feet together.

Eventually Suki comes up to him. “Buy me some cactus juice?”

Sokka levels a mischievous look at her. “Aren’t you going on stage soon? _Someone_ won’t be happy about you drinking right now.”

Suki laughs. “Since when do I let Katara control my life? Come on, let’s go say hi to Haru and enjoy the moment.”

Sokka allows her to whisk him away to the bar, where they each order a cactus juice from Haru, who joins them in making fun of the current band onstage. Things start to feel lighter, happier, and Sokka begins to lose the feeling of nervousness that had clung to his heart ever since they stepped foot in the tavern.

“Okay, we’re done with our groovy tunes! Hope you enjoyed the power of music and love with us tonight! Peace,” the lead singer of The Cave Nomads says into the microphone, after an abrupt ending to their most recent song. Haru sniggers from behind Sokka, and Sokka laughs along.

Suki swings herself out of her bar chair and pushes her now-empty glass over towards Haru. “As much as I’d love to stay here, boys, _duty calls_.” She winks at them before heading over to Katara, Aang and Toph.

“I should probably go see if they need help,” Sokka says to Haru, who nods.

“Tell them good luck from me! Can’t wait to hear everything. Toph gave me some CDs earlier, and I’ve put them out, so hopefully we’ll get some buyers tonight. Once they hear your music, I’m sure they’ll need to buy the album.”

Sokka looks behind Haru and spots the CDs prominently displayed on the liquor cabinet. He laughs. “Hopefully, my good man. Thanks for helping us sell them.”

“Of course!” Haru beams as Sokka gets up and starts walking away. _Haru really is the band’s best hype man._

Halfway through the walk to the stage, Sokka glances around the tavern again. It’s an automatic motion, and even though he _knows_ that Zuko will be in the audience tonight, when Sokka makes eye contact with him, the recognition ripples through his body like a shock. 

Zuko is sitting at one of the tables nearest the stage, Mai and Ty Lee beside him. The girls are sharing a drink together as Zuko looks, _almost forlornly_ , at Sokka. Sokka’s breath catches in his throat and he feels his mouth go dry. He speed walks over to his friends.

“Katara,” he hisses. His sister drops her guitar in surprise and looks disapprovingly over at him.

“What do you need, Sokka?” she asks.

“Zuko’s here,” he says lowly. “He’s sitting at one of the tables.”

Katara’s eyes begin to peer past Sokka, and he urgently steps in to block her view of the man. 

“Don’t look at him!” Sokka urges, frantic. “I don’t know what to do.”

Katara tilts her head at him and gives him a small smile. “Just go talk to him, Sokka. And be honest and true about everything you say. It’ll be fine, I promise.”

“What if it’s not fine?”

“Then we can get ice cream on the way back home,” Katara says, bending down to pick up her guitar, flitting the strap over her head so that it can’t fall from her grip anymore. 

Sokka closes his eyes. “Mint chocolate chip?”

“Mint chocolate chip,” Katara confirms, placing her hands on Sokka’s shoulder. “Now, go and get your man, okay?” She pushes him away the slightest amount, and it gives Sokka courage enough for him to turn around and face Zuko.

Zuko’s golden eyes track him all the way across the tavern. Sokka can’t feel his body, but he knows his feet are slowly but steadily bringing him to the other man.

“Zuko,” Sokka whispers as he gets within earshot of the table.

Zuko looks Sokka up and down and shakes his head. Mai and Ty Lee, being good friends, avert their eyes and start messing around on their phones.

“Can we go talk somewhere?” Sokka asks.

“No, I’m trying to listen to the music,” he replies curtly. _Oh, Agni, Sokka’s missed his raspy voice._

“It hasn’t even started yet. Mind if we go talk?”

"I’m here to support the band, so I’m not going anywhere. I’m not missing their show,” he replies. 

Zuko’s not even looking at Sokka anymore. He’s not even… _he’s not even looking at the band_. Instead, his eyes are glassy and unfocused on anything in particular.

Sokka bunches his sweaty palms into fists. “Zuko. I’d _really appreciate it_ if we could go somewhere and talk.”

“Then wait for their set to end.”

“ _Zuko_. Again, it hasn’t even started”

Zuko glares at him and it feels like a knife. Sokka wants to tear his hair out in frustration.

"Sokka,” Mai butts in, “maybe you should go.”

“But—”

"Come on, handsome, buy me a drink,” Ty Lee says, sauntering out of her seat and grabbing Sokka by the sleeve. Zuko doesn’t watch them leave.

“Ty Lee, no offense, but you weren’t exactly who I was meaning to talk to,” he says, letting her lead him to the bar.

“None taken,” she replies. “But you’re talking to me now. I know I’m not who you wanted to speak to. Just like I know that sometimes the universe makes sense only if you’re given guidance and time.”

Sokka doesn’t want to be rude to Ty Lee, even though every fiber in his body is telling him to tell her _I’d rather not be talking to you, I’d rather be talking to the man you just dragged me away from, and if the universe would allow for_ that _, that would be great!_ Instead of telling her off, he sighs and asks, “What do you want to talk about?”

She smiles at him, and it’s so genuine and gentle that Sokka immediately feels somewhat better. “Did you know that I’m dating Mai?”

That’s not what he expected to hear. His jaw drops a bit. “What? No.”

“Yeah,” Ty Lee says dreamily. She takes a seat on a bar stool and gestures for Sokka to do the same. “We started seeing each other when we were young; young love, you know what they say. We were fumbling around even before Azula left to get help.”

“Where did Azula go, exactly?” Sokka interjects quietly, because he’s never figured that out and he feels like he should know by now.

“She’s been under medical care since we were fifteen,” Ty Lee says, bluntly but gently . “She’s getting treatment for her mental health, and right now she is living at a home, learning how to feel better.”

“Oh,” he breathes. 

“Anyways,” Ty Lee breezes, motioning towards Haru while continuing, “when Azula went away, our whole group dynamic shifted. We didn’t have our leader. Sure, Zuko’s always been older than us, but he lacked Azula’s command and confidence. He made up for it with his gentleness and patience, which Agni knows Azula didn’t have, but the hole in our hearts was still there. We all missed Azula very much. Still do.”

“I’m sure,” Sokka sympathizes.

Haru approaches them.

“Two vodka sprites for me and the man,” Ty Lee purrs at Haru, smiling hugely. “With a little spritz of lime juice, if you don’t mind.”

Haru looks between Ty Lee and Sokka with amusement in his eyes. “Of course,” he replies, rapidly preparing their drinks.

“Anyways,” Ty Lee says, accepting the drinks from Haru and passing one over to Sokka, “because the group dynamic had shifted a bit, Mai and I didn’t quite know what to do with each other. We barely knew what to do with ourselves. We stopped working on music together, because Azula wasn’t there with us, and while Mai spent her newfound free time focused on her grades, I dropped out of school and joined the circus.”

“Zuko had said something about that,” Sokka remembers. “What was that like?”

“Pretty great. Befriended tigers and ate popcorn every day,” she giggles. She takes a sip of her drink. “But it was also lonely. I missed Azula and Zuko, but most of all, I missed Mai. So I found my way back into her life only a year or two later. And at first, she wanted me gone.”

Sokka frowns. “Why?”

“I think she was scared,” Ty Lee says. “She’s always been so full of emotion, but she hasn’t always been comfortable acting on it. Her parents set strict rules and obligations for her to follow. Falling in love with a high school dropout, let alone a girl, didn’t exactly fulfill those.”

“I can understand that,” Sokka says, bringing his own drink to his mouth. “But, Ty Lee, I don’t understand why you’re telling me this. Iroh and I get along; Zuko has his family’s support. These situations are a bit different.”

“They are,” Ty Lee muses, eyes sparkling. “But I never said Mai was conflicted over _just_ her family. She mostly got over that when we first got together. When I came back from a year without her, though, she was still scared on acting on her emotion; only this time, it was because she thought it wasn’t reciprocated.”

“But it was?” Sokka asks, needing it to be confirmed.

Ty Lee laughs at him. “Silly man. Yes, of course it was reciprocated. Mai is the most special person in my life. Don’t tell Zuko or Azula. But, to remedy the situation, I had to remind her of it.”

Sokka huffs into his drink. “I still don’t get it.”

“Of course you don’t,” Ty Lee jokes, rolling her wide eyes. “You know, Sokka, usually I like to focus on the spirituality behind our feelings and the past. The universe is beautiful and full of love and I’ve grown to trust it as my advisor. But, somehow, I knew in my gut that you might need a little more help understanding what’s kismet. Which is why I talked your ear off.” She takes a sip of her drink and clears her throat. “Is it true that once Zuko came out to you, you guys kissed and then you said you hadn’t done anything with a man before?”

Sokka reddens. “Well, yeah, but—”

“I just think,” Ty Lee says, mouth on her glass and eyebrows going upwards, “that maybe those words might have been enough to make Zuko believe you were experimenting with him. Hypothetically.”

Sokka’s jaw drops. “Just because I haven’t done anything with a guy before _doesn’t mean_ that I was only using him as an experiment!”

“And I completely agree with you!” Ty Lee says, eyes wide. “But, hypothetically, maybe Zuko has had a crush on you for, like, _months_ , and just the whiplash of thoughts from kissing you to thinking you were experimenting on him was a lot to deal with. Which is why he shut off from you completely.” She takes a sip of her drink as her words hit Sokka. “Just thinkin’,” she says, setting her glass down.

Sokka groans and puts his head in his hands. “I hate that I made him feel that way.”

Ty Lee rubs his back. “There, there. A little time, a few more kisses, and some sweet sweet confirmation that you aren’t playing that boy for his body should be enough for him to get past that feeling _realllll_ quick.”

Sokka smiles dejectedly at her. “You think so?”

"I know so,” she smiles back. “He’s been bringing you up in conversation since that night he ran into you here, after the pizza delivery, remember? I know him enough to know that deep down he wants this to happen. You just have to figure out what to do. But once you do that, you’ll be golden!”

“Thanks, Ty Lee,” he says, brightening his smile and finishing off the rest of his drink.

Ty Lee finishes her drink as well. She grabs the empty glasses and slides them to the other side of the bar, where Haru picks them up with ease. “Sure thing, handsome,” she says, standing up. “Just know that if you fuck this up and hurt him more, I can make you wish you’d died a happy death years ago.” 

She gives him a kiss on the cheek and then starts walking back to her table, leaving Sokka alone at the bar, gawking at her. He distantly hears Haru laughing behind him. After a few stunned moments, Sokka regains feeling in his body again and turns around to face his friend.

“Not funny,” Sokka mutters, which only makes Haru laugh harder.

“Sorry, it’s just, you should’ve seen your face,” he gets out. When Sokka fixes him a disappointed look, Haru only laughs harder. 

“You should see your face,” Sokka retorts. “Let me shave off your mustache.”

“No!” Haru responds incredulously.

“I can’t believe you,” Sokka shrugs, throwing ten dollars on the counter. “Let me know when you change your mind.”

Sokka looks around the room. Jet and his friends are taking up the booths as usual, the dance floor is busy, and Zuko is over at the tables. The Gaang is still getting ready for their set onstage. Sokka goes and wishes his friends good luck with their performance, and then slips outside through the broken emergency exit.

The cool air is a welcome distraction from his mind. Sokka leans against the outer wall of the tavern, thanking Agni he wore a jean jacket today. He slides down the wall and sits down on the pavement.

He hears the first notes of ‘Metal Bend’ play, and he forces himself to breathe. Toph’s drumming reverberates splendidly outside the tavern. Sokka focuses on the feeling of the wall behind him shaking. It’s much easier than letting his mind wander.

‘Metal Bend’ turns into ‘Fan & Sword’, and Sokka feels a twinge of guilt as he’s not supporting Suki on stage. He debates getting up and going back inside, and just as he uncrosses his legs and shifts his weight to stand, someone else comes through the back door.

“Sorry, I was just moving,” Sokka says, stretching his legs out and standing tall. He brushes the dirt from off the back of his pants and looks up. His tongue gets stuck in his mouth.

“You weren’t in there, listening to the music, so,” Zuko says, fiddling his hands together. 

“Yeah,” Sokka says dumbly. “Yeah, no, I’ve just been out here.”

“Right. Well, you should go listen to your friends.”

“That’s what you want to say?”

Zuko glares at him. “Yeah. They’re your friends, you should be in the audience supporting them.”

“I’ve seen all their shows before.”

“Still.”

“Weren’t you the one that couldn’t get out of your seat to talk to me because you had to be in the audience for The Gaang to play?” Sokka asks, anger beginning to brush at his head. _Had Zuko just come out here to yell at him? For_ not supporting _The Gaang? As if he was even capable of not supporting them?_

Zuko’s eyes narrow. “Yeah. But it’s more important that you’re in there, listening too. Which is why I left. So I could come get you.”

‘Fan & Sword’ stops playing, and the band transitions into ‘My Girlfriend, The Moon’. Sokka is beyond confused. Zuko’s logic _doesn’t make any fucking sense._

“Were you dropped on the head as a baby?” Sokka asks, not processing the conversation well at all.

“Well. Bold of you to assume I was ever held,” Zuko scoffs, opening the door again. 

“Wait, Zuko! Wait,” Sokka says, grabbing onto his wrist. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by that. The whole thing just doesn’t make any sense.”

Zuko lets his wrist be held. He looks down at their attached hands. “Right,” he says. “Well, I’m going inside now. You should come inside, too.”

Sokka feels pained, but he doesn’t have the words to get Zuko to want to stay outside with him. 

“Okay, I’ll come inside,” he says, instead of spewing anything brash or romantic. He lets Zuko move his wrist out of his grip. He follows Zuko back into the tavern, and while Zuko heads right back to his table with his friends, Sokka plasters himself against the back wall. 

‘My Girlfriend, The Moon’ turns into ‘Air Nomad’, ‘Air Nomad’ shifts into ‘Sweat’, and Sokka is in the corner of the bar, hands unoccupied, brain whirring with effort. He keeps circling around things to say to Zuko to make him realize the kiss wasn’t just a spur of the moment thing.

The idea hits him just as Aang finishes singing ‘Kya’. It’s dumb, and probably won’t result in anything but Sokka blundering on and on for a few minutes, and Zuko might hate it; _but Sokka’s running out of options and this is the first solution to pop into his head. He settles on it instantly, without thinking of its consequences_.

“Thank you all for being the absolute best audience,” Aang beams into the mic, and Sokka is hauling his ass towards the stage, “we’ve only got one more song for you tonight, a little untitled ditty—”

"He’s lying!” Sokka yells, huffing as he finally hooks his foot onto the stage. He throws his body upwards, and manages to shimmy up enough so that he lays flat on the stage flooring. His hands reach around for something to grab, and he accidentally knocks the microphone over.

“Sokka, there are stairs!” Katara yells at him, running over to pick up the mic.

“This song has a name!” Sokka yells, grabbing unto his (frustrated) sister’s sleeve and forcing her to help him up. She yanks him and he’s suddenly on his feet. And he realizes exactly where he is.

_Onstage. In the limelight, and maybe he shouldn’t have worn his jean jacket, because it is hot. Maybe Sokka is burning. Maybe this is how he dies; on fire, in front of a crowd, two seconds before he has his shot at redemption. Oh Agni. Does_ everybody _in the tavern have to be looking at him? Can Haru turn off all the lights? Maybe Haru can turn off the lights. He’s going to need Haru to turn off the lights and institute a no-looking-at-Sokka-when-he-goes-onstage-to-woo-a-boy rule. Agni._

“Sokka,” someone whispers into his ear. “You good, buddy?”

Sokka looks to his left and sees Aang. _Oh, right._ Sokka gulps and nods. 

Aang frowns. Sokka flicks his eyes back out to the audience.

He finds a speck of gold by accident. He latches onto it, examines it to make out its surroundings of Zuko’s inky hair, his angry burn, his black hoodie that looks criminally attractive on him. His golden eyes are wide; saucers for him to focus on.

“Zuko,” Sokka breathes. He feels the reverberation of his voice around him, bouncing off from the mic. _Focus on Zuko. Focus on Zuko_. “This song, well, I wrote it. And I didn’t give it a name. Aang told me I should name it.”

Sokka gestures to Aang as if this proves some point. (It doesn’t.)

“Generally,” Sokka continues, “songs are better when they have a name. But at first I didn’t want to name this one because it wasn’t anyone’s fucking business.”

“Sokka!” Aang calls out, dismayed. “No cursing!”

“Oh, fuck, sorry Aang,” he quickly replies, smacking a hand on his face. “Anyways.” _Focus on Zuko, focus on Zuko_. “I met someone and within two days I had written this song because of them. Because of him. Yeah, I like a guy, so what?” Sokka angrily asks the crowd, feeling oddly aggressive. “He’s beautiful, I bet if you saw him you’d be rethinking your sexuality too. He’s here tonight. Wait—maybe don’t look for him, because I’m trying to make something happen. So hopefully it’d be hopeless for the rest of you guys. Sorry.”

“Snoozles. Get on with it,” Toph groans, throwing her drumsticks to the floor.

_Focus on Zuko, focus on Zuko_.

Zuko is looking up at Sokka. That’s all Sokka can see. Every detail of his face is getting more and more lost in the stage lights. Sokka needs to _leave_ , but he’s not done yet.

“So yeah. He’s got golden eyes, how fucking cool is that? And he’s rude in a nice way. And he’s smart. And he’s hot. Like, attractive, but also he makes me feel hot inside. That’s weird. And he also makes me nervous. And I’m nervous standing up here on stage, okay? And I don’t really know what to name this song, not really. But it’s not ‘untitled’. This song is about Zuko. Maybe we could go with, ‘Zuko I Have Had Romantic and Sexual Feelings Towards You From The Start’ or something? Or—Zuko, do you like that? It’s a stupid name but I mean it.” 

Sokka can’t catch Zuko’s reaction, so he whips his head back to look at his friends. “How did you re-arrange this one?”

Toph sighs as she picks her drumsticks back up. “Twinkletoes starts with his bass. Go ahead, Twinkletoes.”

Aang, confused, begins the song. Sokka doesn’t let go of the microphone. He’s got a death grip on it. He thinks it might never leave his hand. 

“Kick me when I should start singing, okay?” Sokka quickly asks Aang. Luckily, his friend hears him and nods.

There are some sniggers from the audience, but Sokka ignores them. _Focus on Zuko, focus on Zuko_. The music behind him picks up. Aang kicks him.

Sokka sings the song. It’s offkey, never rehearsed yet spilling from his lips. Sokka keeps his eyes closed. His words have sounded better before, but they’ve never rang as true.

The whole ordeal finishes within minutes. Sokka opens his eyes. _Focus on Zuko, focus on Zuko_. Katara claps him on the back, and Aang starts cheering. _Focus on Zuko, focus on Zuko_. The microphone falls out of his hands, and he moves them to shield his face from the stage lights, peering through the audience. _Focus on Zuko, focus on Zuko_. Zuko’s not in his seat. Sokka’s heart falls through the floor. 

Just as Sokka is going to scurry down the stage stairs, he feels a hand wrap around his ankle. He’s about to tell the person off, but he looks down and is met with golden eyes. _Oh_.

“Come outside with me?” Zuko asks. Sokka has to strain his ears to hear his question under the natural hum of the tavern.

Before Sokka has the chance to reply, Zuko unlatches his hand from his ankle and heads out through the back door. Sokka spares a glance up at his friends; Suki’s helping Toph disassemble her drums, Aang is talking to a few fangirls near the edge of the stage, and Katara is looking at Sokka knowingly. She shoots him a thumbs up sign, and Sokka smiles weakly at her before following in Zuko’s shadow.

“What’s up?” Sokka asks, shutting the door behind them.

Zuko examines Sokka. His eyes roam from Sokka’s own, to Sokka’s outfit, then back up to Sokka’s lips. Sokka feels nervous. _Is there something on my face? Is he looking for my weak points to beat me up? I’d probably deserve that, right?_

Sokka opens his mouth to ask these things aloud, but Zuko promptly shuts him up before he begins by pressing their lips together. Sokka’s in shock for a moment ( _so he doesn’t want to kick my ass? that stunt… actually worked?_ ). Before he can overthink the situation, he urgently grabs the back of Zuko’s neck between his hands and pulls him closer. Zuko moans in his mouth and Sokka quickly turns them around to press Zuko against the closed door.

“How,” _kiss_ , “the fuck,” _kiss_ , “do you _like_ me?” Zuko’s words flit in between their kisses and Sokka does his best to make Zuko _shut the hell up_.

“Seriously,” Zuko murmurs as Sokka fits a leg between Zuko’s.

“Less talking,” Sokka adamantly says. He gets back to work eliciting moans from Zuko.

“No, wait,” Zuko says after a few minutes, pushing Sokka away. The distance between them is stupid and Sokka wants to get rid of it immediately, but he unravels his body from Zuko’s.

“What’s up?” Sokka asks softly, running a hand through Zuko’s hair.

Zuko tightens his face together. “That stuff you said on stage… is that all true?”

“No,” Sokka says sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “I actually think you’re the grossest person I’ve ever laid eyes on. Your eyes remind me of urine.”

Zuko looks bewildered. _Sokka will never stop adoring this man_.

“In case my words were hard to understand,” Sokka says, more quietly, with a smile, “I like you. I really, really like you, Zuko. And yeah, this is the first time I’ve ever liked a guy.” Zuko’s face shuts down a bit; his eyes darken and lower, and he bites his lip. Sokka continues running his fingers through the other man’s hair. “But who’s keeping track?” Sokka continues. “I don’t think it matters. This is the first time I’ve ever liked a person named Zuko, but that doesn’t make it any less real to me.”

“You actually like me,” Zuko whispers without even moving his lips. Sokka wonders if he ever even meant for it to be audible. Nonetheless, Sokka addresses it.

“Yep. Not to freak you out, but I’ve felt drawn to you since that first night here, when we were just talking to each other,” Sokka says. “Just so you know. It’s not really a recent development in my mind.”

Zuko looks up at him again, and the light from the streetlamps catches in his eyes. His eyes look as if they have constellations stuck in his molten honey color, and Sokka wants to study their structure. Seeing his own reflection within the galaxies of Zuko’s eyes gives Sokka the strangest sense of satisfaction.

Zuko’s hand hesitantly snakes back around Sokka’s waist, and Sokka grins before moving his hands back to the sides of Zuko’s face, pressing their lips together once more.

This kiss lacks the urgency of their past ones; instead, it’s slow, exploratory, and Zuko’s hands on his side are delicate and soft. Sokka kisses him with a light intensity; tongues slowly folding onto each other, mouths opening more and more to allow each other in. Sokka presses his body back against Zuko, who is still leaning against the door.

Zuko hums against his mouth _and lyrics flood into Sokka’s head, beautiful chords strike their very first notes in his brain, and he can’t control the overpouring of emotions in his mind_. What he can control is how he holds Zuko against him; softly, without abandon. 

Sokka kisses Zuko everywhere he can; on his lips, on his nose, on his scar, on his neck. Zuko’s hands roam the same path along Sokka’s sides. 

Their kissing ebbs and pretty soon Sokka is leaning against Zuko, who’s leaning against the tavern door, and Sokka wants to teleport the both of them back to his bedroom so that they never have to be apart from each other again. 

The thought slips through his lips, whispered into Zuko’s good ear, almost automatically. Zuko huffs good-humoredly and goes on his heels an inch so that he can press a kiss to Sokka’s cheek. Sokka reddens instinctively.

“That’s very forward of you,” Zuko says in his low, sultry voice.

“Well,” Sokka gets out, feeling flustered in the best way possible. “You know. Honesty’s the best policy, right?”

Zuko rolls his eyes and opens his mouth, about to reply, when all of a sudden they’re jolted slightly from the door. They jump from each other just as the door budges open, Haru peeking out, trash bag in his hand.

“What are you guys doing out here in the cold?” Haru asks, shuffling outside and throwing the trash in the bin a few yards away. “Escaping the crowd?”

“Escaping the view of your mustache,” Sokka jokes, after a beat of silence. Zuko is unbelievably looking interested in the sky.

Haru looks a tad perturbed but shrugs it off. “Have it your way, man. The Gaang’s looking for the two of you, by the way. I won’t tell them you’re out here if you don’t want me to.”

Sokka spares a glance at Zuko, who’s now looking softly back at him. 

"Nah, it’s cool,” Sokka replies, knowing how he’s supposed to respond. “We’re right behind you.”

They follow Haru back into the tavern, to where Mai and Ty Lee are dancing together to the pop music playing over the speakers. Aang and Katara aren’t far from them, dancing much more outlandishly than the girls. Ty Lee seems to be pointing this out to Mai, who is somewhat stoic on the dancefloor. Sokka hears Zuko laugh behind him.

Sokka turns back to look at the man who has captured his whole heart. The happy, bright environment suits Zuko. The light bounces from his eyes, his shoulders are relaxed, and Sokka would go in for another kiss if they weren’t surrounded by so many people. Instead, he holds out a hand.

“Dance with me?” Sokka asks, feeling light as Zuko’s eyes crinkle at the request.

“Try not to step on my feet,” Zuko replies, tongue-in-cheek. “And try your best to keep up with me.”

Sokka grins wildly. “Oh, you’re on.”

-!-!-!-!-!-!-!-

They’ve been dating for ten months when Sokka finds the lyrics.

They’re scrawled on the back page of one of Zuko’s journals, and every word seems to have mountains of annotations. Sokka’s familiar with Zuko’s writing style; after a few weeks of dating, Zuko confessed to writing the bulk of his lyrics right after therapy, flowing out of his head in a stream-of-consciousness style. Zuko tends not to overthink his lyrics; once he writes them out, they’re usually the words that end up on his finalized recordings for The Blue Spirit.

The extra care that has visibly gone into these words is off-putting.

“Zuko!” Sokka calls, hoping his voice reaches the back of The Jasmine Dragon. 

“For the last time, Sokka, I’m not giving you any more pastries! You’ve already had three today!” The irritation in Zuko’s voice is tinged with affection, and Sokka smiles.

“Not what I was going to ask, but if you change your mind, let me know!” Sokka jokes. “Come out to the front! I want to see you.”

After a few moments ( _during which Sokka hears the clang of a few dishes and a soft, muttered ‘fuck!’, which tragically seems to be noticed by the two old ladies drinking tea at a nearby table, who scrunch their faces together_ ), Zuko comes out to the front, walking until he’s right on the other side of the counter that Sokka’s at.

Zuko cocks his eyebrow up. “What do you need?”

“To see your beautiful face,” Sokka says sweetly.

Zuko reddens. “Well, if that’s it,” he says, already turning away again.

Sokka reaches out and grabs his wrist. “Wait!”

“Sokka, the dishes won’t wash themselves,” Zuko complains, but he turns back to face Sokka anyways. Zuko moves his hands to cover Sokka’s, and his thumbs rub reassuringly over his skin. 

“I know. I just found this, and I didn’t recognize it,” Sokka says, extracting one hand from Zuko’s grip so that he could push the notebook to his boyfriend.

Zuko frowns as he tilts his head to peer at the lyrics. Sokka had only skimmed over them, focusing more on the fact that they were unfamiliar and strangely cared-for rather than trying to read them. When Zuko stills beside him and clears his throat, Sokka gets curious and glances quickly at the words written on paper, but Zuko grabs the notebook away and closes it.

“Sorry about that,” Zuko mutters, leaning back away from the counter. “That song must have been kind of creepy to read in retrospect, I suppose.”

Sokka gawks at Zuko. “What? I didn’t read it. Zuko, now you _have to_ let me read it.”

Zuko blinks at Sokka. “You didn’t?”

“No,” Sokka insists, holding out his hand for the notebook. “I just skimmed it, I promise. But it didn’t look like what you normally write, which is why I called you out here.”

“Oh,” Zuko says, grasping the notebook tightly. “Great, then, let’s just forget about it.”

“ _Zuko,_ ” Sokka pleads, flashing him his pleading eyes that occasionally can make Zuko balk under pressure. 

It succeeds. Zuko returns his stare with a hardened one of his one for a few seconds, before sighing loudly and slapping the notebook back down on the countertop. “Fine.”

“Thank you so much, babe,” Sokka says, immediately moving to rip open the notebook again. He finds the page without much difficulty. “So what’s this one about?”

“I wrote it after our first real conversation,” Zuko mutters, settling against the countertop. “Within that first week. I meant to perform it, but the first time I tried, you ended up being there, and I didn’t want to give you any ideas. So I just go back and edit it occasionally. It’s no big deal.”

Zuko’s words don’t particularly register to Sokka, as he’s too busy reading Zuko’s messy handwriting.

_Was my bed always this empty_

_I’m cuddling next to lonesome air_

_Never felt its ghost befall me_

_Before I saw you over there_

_Caught in waves of loneliness_

_And now I’ve an ocean to evade_

_Trapped in the weather of your eyes;_

_Storm with no barricade_

_If I drown before I wake_

_I pray your eyes my soul to take._

_Ghost lonesome air, please go away,_

_And bring him to my arms someday._

_And if we sin, as lovers do,_

_Don’t bring him hell to put him through_

_Just leave me gasping out for air_

_Trapped in his eyes, without despair._

_I’d gladly take the fall for love;_

_If he fell, too, I’d rise above_

_Without complaint, without goodbyes,_

_I’d be lucky if still in his eyes._

_And when I’m gone, don’t flood his bed_

_With ghostly lonesome air and dread_

_But rather love, gentle and kind,_

_With thoughts of me still on his mind._

Sokka’s jaw drops. “You’re saying… that you wrote this for me?”

Zuko reddens. “Not necessarily for you, no. Just, like, about you. Inspired by you.”

Sokka puts the notebook down and grins at his bumbling boyfriend. “Sounds like you wrote this for me.”

“Whatever,” Zuko says, rolling his eyes and grabbing the notebook back. “It’s not like you haven’t written songs for me.”

“Yeah, but you wrote _this one_ about _me_ ,” Sokka pushes, taking a great deal of pride in how charmingly uncomfortable Zuko is getting. “You _like me_.”

“Does us dating somehow not convey that message?” Zuko asks.

“Zuko and Sokka sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g—”

“I’m not sure you can sing that rhyme if you’re one of the people in the hypothetical tree,” Zuko says, exasperated. There’s an easy smile on his face.

“I can do whatever I want to,” Sokka says, standing up. “Including hugging you.”

He hauls his body up and over the shop’s front counter, much to the chagrin of the two old ladies nearby.

“Sokka, you can’t just—Agni,” Zuko huffs out as Sokka laces his arms around the slightly shorter man. “Sokka.” Zuko’s arms loop back around Sokka, and he rests his head against Sokka’s shoulder.

“You’re a sap,” Sokka whispers into his ear, and he relishes in how Zuko shudders slightly in his arms. “And I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Zuko murmurs gently. “Now get back around the counter before Iroh finds you here and fires me instantly.”

Sokka lets out a huff of laughter and kisses Zuko on the cheek. “Your wish is my command.”

Sokka saunters over to his seat, eyes never leaving Zuko’s face. It’s funny; after ten months together, Sokka figured he would get used to the wonders of Zuko’s eyes, the tingling rasp of his voice. These things have grown familiar, but that hasn’t dulled their impact on Sokka’s heart at all. Quite the opposite, really.

Zuko lingers at the counter, despite the dishes Sokka knows are waiting for him in the back.

“There’s more,” he confesses, so quietly Sokka thinks he’s imagined it.

“What do you mean?”

“There’s more songs like this,” Zuko says, looking at Sokka and holding up the notebook. “I tend to overthink songs about you. I keep cycling back to them as I get to know you more. Sorry if that’s weird.”

“It’s not weird,” Sokka immediately says. “That’s actually kind of sweet. I’m glad you still want to, what was it? ‘ _Leave you gasping out for air trapped in my eyes’_?”

Zuko blankly looks at Sokka. “You know what? I’ve just decided something. I am never going to talk to you ever again.”

"Wow,” Sokka responds. “Katara and Aang’s wedding this weekend is going to be super awkward if I can’t even talk to my date.”

“Funny how that’s not my problem.”

“You just talked to me!”

“I’m merely thinking out loud,” Zuko says in a jokingly contemplative voice. His eyes wander from Sokka’s face and he begins to move back into the kitchen of the tea shop. “I can’t wait to attend the wedding and talk to everyone except for Sokka. Agni knows I talk to him too much already. That can’t be good for me, pretty soon I might feel a carnal need for seal jerky and pastries and online shopping sprees.”

“Hey!”

“Thank Agni I decided to never ever talk to him again.”

“Zuko!”

“I mean, it’d be pretty embarrassing if he knew that despite the teasing, I love him desperately.”

Zuko begins to vanish from Sokka’s view, and Sokka smiles at his retreating back. “It _would_ be pretty embarrassing to know that Zuko loves me desperately. Almost as embarrassing as it would be for him to know that desperately I love him _back_.”

He can hear Zuko’s quiet laughter before he disappears completely from the front of the shop.

With Zuko gone, Sokka refocuses on his own notebook in front of him. He flips through it, finding stanza upon stanza dedicated to just the way Zuko feels beneath him in bed. Choruses of the way Zuko’s rare genuine laughter electrifies the very air around him. Bridges bursting with moments of deep mutual understanding between the two of them.

Sokka wants to write the man an album and have him listen to it while Sokka kisses down his throat. He wants to immortalize the way Zuko impacts his life. He wants to shout it to the world. He wants to write it along Zuko’s ribcage, as close as he can get to his heart.

The time that Sokka felt so unsure of his emotions toward Zuko feels so long ago. Now, Sokka is certain of two things:

  1. He loves Zuko. (Desperately.)
  2. Zuko desperately loves him back.



And that’s all that ever needs to be true, for it all to be enough.

**Author's Note:**

> & there you have it!! thank you so much for reading, & i hope you guys liked it <3 let me know what you thought of it!! kudos/comments are so so so appreciated!!!!!!! 
> 
> also: come find me on tumblr! i'm @muncaster
> 
> also also: i spent a lot of time listening to the song 'alight' by ninajirachi when i wrote this, it's worth checking out! literally so good
> 
> ALSO ALSO ALSO: someone has made real life versions of some of the songs!!!! check them out below:  
> 'Mint': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZYnbYEjluQ  
> 'untitled' (aka 'Zuko I Have Had Romantic and Sexual Feelings Towards You From The Start'): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3MWC6AMg3g
> 
> thanks again <3


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